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Lee & Shepard, Publishers^ Boston, 



THE 



INTERMEDIATE WORLD. 



BY 



L. T. TOWNSEND, D. D., 

PROFESSOR IN BOSTON UNIVERSITY ; AUTHOR OF ** CREDO," ETC, 



*< Time is like a ship which never anchors ; while I am on board I had 
better do those things that may profit me at my landing, than practise 
suck as shall cause mj commitment when I come ashore." 

FELTHA.M. 






BOSTON: 
LEE AND SHEPARD, PUBLISHERS. 

NEW YORK : CHARLES T. DILLINGHAM. 
1878. 



7r 



T^ If- 



COPYRIGHT, 

1878, 
By L. T. TowNSEND. 



The Library 
OF Congress 



stereotyped at the Boston Stereotype Foundry, 
19 Spring Lane. 



TO 

HON. WILLIAM CLAFLIN, LL.D., 

PURE IN POLITICAL LIFE, 

BROAD IN PHILANTHROPIES, A NOBLE PATRON OF EDUCATION, 

FAITHFUL IN FRIENDSHIPS, HUMBLE AND DEVOUT 

IN ALL CHRISTIAN WORK AND WALK, 

» VLi)iQ Ufllume 

IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED. 



PEEFACE. 



A PREDICTION twelve months past, that the 
newspaper, magazine, and book press of to- 
day would be crowded with subject-matter re- 
lating to the future fate of the wicked, and 
that the pulpits, of all denominations, and the 
popular lecture platforms, at home and abroad, 
would resound so soon with this hitherto neg- 
lected doctrine, would have been received 
with the utmost incredulity. 

There was, even at that late date, nothing 
existing apparently to call forth such discus- 
sion. Many topics, notably those of the East- 
ern War, home politics, questions of finance, 
and discoveries in the realms of pure physics, 
would have been urged as adequate reasons 
why theological dogmas — especially those re- 
lating to " Hell '' and '' Future Punishment " — 



6 PREFACE. 

could not be revived in the present genera- 
tion. 

But, as if under supernatural inspiration, 
the human mind, civilization through, is roused, 
and with intense and prolonged gaze the eye 
is fixed upon the future. 

We somewhat suspect that the present drift 
of thinking is merely preliminary to a new 
era, in which public attention will turn more 
and more, though perhaps gradually, to the 
invisible^ from which materialism has so long 
divorced our thoughts. To us it seems that 
good will come of this new theological drift : 
we therefore contribute our mite. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

Introductory 9 

I. 
The Place 15 

II. 
A World of Consciousness 25 

III. 
A Dual World 47 

IV. 
A World of Fixedness 67 

V. 
Not a World of Judicial Rewards nor Pun- 
ishments 171 

VI. 
The Transit 191 

NOTES 211 

7 



THE 

INTERMEDIATE WORLD. 



^ntrodnciot^. 



Shortly every man will stand face to face 
with a tombstone. To see over it, round it, or 
under it he cannot ; yet to reflect upon what 
is beyond this perplexing -point-hlank is as 
natural as the breath. Hardened and spirit- 
ually dead indeed must be the man, whatever 
his professions, who resolutely refuses to give 
a thought, nay, much thought, to that Some- 
w^here into which all now living are to pass, 
— into which he is so quickly to step himself, 
and into which many a friend and acquaintance 
of his has already stepped. 

Of this philosopher and that, from this 
object and that, has inquiry been made, but 
all to no purpose, for all else, save Revela- 

9 



lO THE INTERMEDIATE WORLD. 

tion, has stood before this subject with bowed 
head and a finger on the Hps. 

Twenty-five years ago, thirteen men, six in 
Massachusetts and seven in the State of New 
York, entered into an agreement that, as each 
died, the survivors should attend his funeral,! 
and that, if possible, the departed would ap- 
pear to the others after death. Only two 
now survive, one in the city of Springfield, 
the other in x\lbany, and no communications 
have yet been received from the other world. 
The gentleman in the first-named city is sixty- 
one years of age, and says he has slept alone 
during the three or four nights following the 
death of each of the others, in the vain hope 
of hearing from them. Many a bereaved hus- 
band has likewise listened day and night for 
just one word from a loving and loved wife, 
but has not heard it. 

Human research, unaided, seems to do little 
more for us than to formulate and place upon 
our lips a creed like that of a distinguished 
New England Radical : " We are tenants at 
will, liable at any moment to be served with a 



INTliODUCTORY. II 

notice to quit. But what proof of immortality? 
None, we must confess, but hope." * 

Being in such a plight ; personally knowing 
nothing of the future, near or remote, especially 
after the death-warrant is issued and executed, 
no friend really having returned to speak with 
us, and the reports of those whom medium 
Spiritualists assert have returned being so ex- 
tremely contradictory, what better course can 
one propose than the patient study of the say- 
ings of our Lord and his apostles, testing their 
disclosures by all related knowledge found in 
the realms of physics and metaphysics? 

He was a wise and mysterious teacher; he 
knew the mind of God, as far as we can judge, 
more fully than any other; when he spake 
upon these subjects, he used not the world's 
"peradventure,'' but the divine ^^ verily ;" human 
judgment for eighteen centuries has given him 
and the words he taught his followers its pre- 
eminent certificate. Under the circumstances, 
therefore, are not men wise to listen? 

* Dr. Bartol. See also Supplemental Notes, page 22> 
marked here, ^ ; hereafter, ^, ^, "^j &c. 



12 THE INTERMEDIATE WORLD. 

For various reasons, we limit the range of 
discussion in this treatise to the state or condi- 
tion of the dead man in the interim between 
* his dissolution and the scenes of the Resurrec- 
tion and the Judgment. 



h^ Mlitce. 



13 



^he ^hc^. 



Many scientists of the present date hold that 
physical tissue is not the cause of vital force, 
but that vital force is the agent or active cause 
in the development and movement of all tissue. 
It is the opinion of Carpenter, Draper, Sir 
Lionel Beale, and Hermann Lotze, that it is 
demonstrable, upon the ground of pure physio- 
logical investigation, that the soul is an agent 
as external to the cerebral mechanism as light 
is to the eye, or sound to the ear. 

If, therefore, vital force is distinguishable 
from bodily tissue, and if death is a separation 
of vital from bodily tissue, — which no one dis- 
putes, — and if anything once existing in the 
universe can never be lost from it, or annihi- 
lated, but will maintain endless future historic 

15 



1 6 THE INTERMEDIATE WORLD. 

connections and associations, which is the claim 
of every branch of modern science, then it fol- 
lows that the vital forces which went to make 
up the living man, must, after death, be and 
remain somewhere in the universe. Also, if 
those vital forces constitute the soul, or enter 
into its constitution as factors of more or less 
importance, then that soul, or some parts of it, 
if it has parts, must still be somewhere in the 
universe, active and conscious or otherwise ; a 
place for it, at all events, there must be. Thus 
far, upon purely rationalistic and scientific 
grounds, we can go; but not much further, 
save by the aid of Revelation. 

In stress of weather, the mariner consults 
any chart he can command, at least if there is 
likelihood of its reporting to him somewhat; 
such baffled mariners are we ; hence, in lieu 
of anything better, we may study a chart which 
confessedly gives much light upon subjects 
with which we are acquainted ; it may not 
speak amiss when reporting as to the unseen 
and the unknown. 

The place for the disembodied vital forces 



THE PLACE. 17 

or soul, if we may call them such, is termed 
in the Old Testament Sheol^ the original root 
having the force either of " cavity," or of " ask-- 
ing ; " as if it were a place never full, or as if 
the friends of those who enter it were ever asking 
respecting the departed, without obtaining re- 
sponse. This word is used sixty-five times in 
the Old Testament ; the English version trans- 
lates it " grave " and " hell " thirty-one times 
each, and three times it is translated ^^pit." 
The Septuagint is more self-consistent, trans- 
lating it "Hades" with but two exceptions, (2 
Sam. xxii. 6; Prov. xxiii. 14.)^ 

It is now very generally allowed that SJieol 
has an exact meaning, and signifies the place 
into which the souls of men enter at death, and 
where they remain until the resurrection. Had 
the Old Testament writers meant literally the 
" grave " in places where Sheol is thus trans- 
lated, they would have employed the word 
Kehber ; ^ had they meant " pit," they would 
have used Bohr. 

The following representative passages are 
suggestive : 



l8 THE INTERMEDIATE WORLD. 

" It is as high as heaven ; what canst thou 
do? deeper than Sheol ; what canst thou 
know?"* 

" For thou wilt not leave my soul in Sheol; 
neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see 
corruption." f 

"Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or 
whither shall I flee from thy presence? 

" If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there : 
If I make my bed in Sheol^ behold thou art 
there." % 

" Sheol and destruction are never full ; so 
the eyes of man are never satisfied." § 

^^Sheol from beneath is moved for thee to 
meet thee at thy coming : it stirreth up the dead 
for thee, even all the chief ones of the earth ; 
it hath raised up from their thrones all the 
kings of the nations." || 

"The}^ also went down into Sheol With, him 
unto them that be slain with the sword ; and 
they that were his arm, that dwelt under his 
shadow in the midst of the heathen." ** 

* Job xi. 8. § Prov. xxvii. 20. 

f Ps. xvi. 10. II Is. xiv. 9. 

X Ps. cxxxix. 7, 8. ** Ezek. xxxi. 17. 



THE PLACE. 



19 



'^ Though they dig into Sheol^ thence shall 
mine hand take them ; though they climb up 
to heaven, thence will I bring them down." * 

In the New Testament, the words. Hades ^ 
Tartarus^ Fhulake (prison), and Abussos (the 
deep), are employed, and are now believed to 
signify, when alluding to the dead, the same 
general abode of the disembodied as the word 
Sheol denotes in the Old Testament. 

The following passages are familiar and 
suggestive : 

"Because thou wilt not leave my soul in 
Hades^ neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One 
to see corruption." 

''He seeing this before, spake of the resur- 
rection of Christ, that his soul was not left in 
Hades^ neither his flesh did see corruption." f 

"O death, where is thy sting? O Hades ^ 
where is thy victory ? " f 

"I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, 
behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and 
have the keys of Hades and of death." § 

* Amos ix. 2. t Acts ii. 27, 31. 

X I Cor. XV. SS' % Rev. i. 18. 



20 THE INTERMEDIATE WORLD. 

"And the sea gave up the dead which were 
in it; and death and Hades delivered up the 
dead which were in them : and they were 
judged every man according to their works. 

"And death and Hades were cast into the 
lake of fire. This is the second death." * 

But, aside from passages containing these 
definite words, light may be thrown upon the 
subject by studying certain incidental refer- 
ences. There is, for instance, frequent men- 
tion of ordinarily unseen angelic intelligences, 
which have abodes somewhere, and which 
seem to be familiar with, if they do not be- 
long to, or have missions in, the intermediate 
world. ^ 

If the ultimate new heavens are not yet fully 
prepared, — as certain passages seem to im- 
ply, f and if the eyes of mortals do not look 
beyond the regions of the intermediate world 
until after the scenes of the Judgment are 
passed, which may likewise be inferred from 
certain scriptures, $ then it would seem to have 

* Rev. XX. 13, 14. t John v. 17; xiv. 2. 

X Acts ii. 34 ; Hebrews xi. 39, 40. 



THE PLACE. 21 

been a view of the borders of this mysterious 
Sheol^ or Hades ^ which was granted to Jacob, 
and which led him to say, even of the locahty 
where the vision was witnessed, '^ How dread- 
ful is this place ! This is none other than the 
house of God, and this is the gate of heaven." * 

It may likewise have been the borders of 
this intermediate world which Elisha beheld 
at the translation of Elijah, and the same 
which the servant of Elisha afterwards saw 
when he looked upon what seemed to him the 
vast and mighty armies of Jehovah. f 

It was also probably this strange intermedi- 
ate world which opened its portals at the bap- 
tism of Jesus, and from which came the voice, 
"Thou art my beloved Son, in whom I am 
well pleased." % 

It was, perhaps, this same sublime ■perspec- 
tive of the intermediate world which expanded 
before the vision of the dying Stephen, upon 
the day of his martyrdom. § It was, most 

* Gen. xxviii. 10-17. f 2 Kings ii. 9-12 ; vi. 13-18. 

X Mark i. 2. See also Matt. xvii. 3, 4; Luke iii. 21, 22 ; 
ix. 29. § Acts vii. SS^ 56. 



22 THE INTERMEDIATK WORLD. 

likely, the brilliant light of this same wonderful 
and intermediate world which also broke upon 
the vision of Paul while on the road to Damas- 
cus ; so sudden and so intense were the scenes 
that it resulted in a blindness incurable save 
by a miracle.* 

It was likewise, as it seems, this same mag- 
nificent intermediate world, — this preliminary 
abode, this sublime ante-chamber of the eternal 
heavens, — which Paul afterward was permit- 
ted to look upon, in something like its fulness. f 

Such are the Bible representations in general 
of that intermediate condition which receives 
into its ample portals all those who pass through 
the gates of death from this to the world eternal. 

We conclude, therefore, that there is a place 
for disembodied souls ; that the surroundings 
are unlike those of our present physical life, 
but that it is none the less a place, and that 
there is nothing known upon scientific or spec- 
ulative grounds, which would prevent the soul 
from passing into that place when separated 
from the physical organism. 

* Acts ix. I-20. t 2 Cor. xiii. 1-4. 






23 



II. 
WorJd of ^omciammBB. 



That there is a place in which the vital 
forces belonging to man may exist when they 
are separated from the bodily organism is, 
antecedently, just as probable as that there is 
a place of existence for those vital forces while 
in an organism ; or, more briefly, it is antece- 
dently just as probable that there should be a 
place for souls, as that there should be one for 
souls and bodies. It would seem, indeed, to 
be a far less complicated task to adjust sur- 
roundings suited to naked souls, than to adjust 
fit adaptations for souls in bodies. 

So, likewise, if vital forces can be endowed 
with consciousness while embodied in physical 
or chemical elements, then we should just as 

25 



26 THE INTERMEDIATE WORLD. 

reasonably expect they could be thus endowed 
when free from such elements. Antecedently, 
therefore, there is nothing to render objection- 
able the statement that immediately after death 
men not only enter a definite place, but are 
also in possession of full consciousness while 
in that place. 

We are aware, however, that there are those 
holding firmly to orthodoxy who have advo- 
cated the view that when a man dies, he sleeps ; 
and that during the entire intermediate period 
the mind will remain so utterly oblivious to all 
events objective, and to all operations subjec- 
tive, that the scenes of the Resurrection morn- 
ing will appear to take place simultaneously 
with the loss of consciousness at death, though 
thousands of ages may have intervened. 

We are far from putting a light estimate upon 
the convictions of these eminent men ; the ar- 
gument in reply will shortly be offered. 

There are also a few theological metaphysi- 
cians who assert, upon philosophical grounds, 
as they claim, that the soul in the Intermediate 
condition will be " pure essence ; " " substance 



A WORLD OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 27 

uncompounded and without parts ; '^ " without 
place ; " *^ a monad, indivisible and unextend- 
ed ; " " a simple metaphysical entity." 

But while listening to these terms one feels 
much as Sherlock expressed himself: "It all 
sounds very much like nothing." Of the force 
of these phrases in this connection, we confess 
that we know very little. We prefer to take 
the simple position rather, that those conscious 
vital forces of man, which during life have 
existed in connection with the soul, will be, 
after death, either nothing or something. If 
they are something, and not infinite, they must 
have a definite location ; and if those aforetime 
conscious active forces are something and are 
somewhere, then the philosophical reasons are 
stronger than any counter reasons, for suppos- 
ing that the soul will know the fact that it is 
something and is somewhere. If this fact of 
existence and locality is known to the soul, 
then it must be in a state of conscious existence. 
Until these philosophical reasons are presented, 
all speculative objections should be held in 
suspense. 



28 THE INTERMEDIATE WORLD. 

We are likewise not ignorant of the fact that 
sentiment, as well as philosophy, has had some- 
thing to offer in favor of unconsciousness in 
the intermediate world. There are those, for 
instance, who have expressed a longing for a 
period of rest after death, regarding such con- 
ceivable repose as of all conditions the most 
desirable. A minister, whose cares had been 
oppressive and labors severe, may have given 
expression to a like feeling in some of the 
hearts of our readers, when saying : 

"The first thing I wish to do in the next 
world is to lie down and go to sleep, and sleep 
uninterruptedly for a thousand years. Let me 
alone and let me rest, will be my dying 
prayer." 

We think, however, that most men are so 
constituted that they prefer to run no risks. 
Personally, we have some misgivings as to 
such protracted sleep. If, when we die, the 
soul drops into a state of profound unconscious- 
ness, and thus continues for a thousand years, 
we fear lest the protracted sleep should become 
a fixed habit, and that there would be no 



A WORLD OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 29 

waking us. When upon the point of dropping 
into that unconscious slumber which is to be 
continued, say a thousand years, we should 
tremble lest it might continue for two thou- 
sand ; then just as easily for ten thousand, and 
then forever; nobody at length taking the 
trouble to wake us. "Were the matter to be sub- 
mitted to us for choice, we should say, " I speak 
for consciousness." 

Disembodied and unconscious vital or soul 
forces being nowhere in particular during six 
thousand years, as in case of Adam, is not a 
promising outlook for ultimate future con- 
sciousness. How easily God in this way could 
snufF out the candle of the sum-total of all 
conscious existence, and nobody know it ! 
" Dead men tell no tales." He could commence 
over again, and nobody would be the wiser. 

It may be replied, however, that this is not 
argument. We have not presented it as argu- 
ment exactly : it is simply a sentiment to offset 
the sentiment which the objector has presented. 

More than this : perhaps the man who thinks 
he w^ould like to rest at death will have other 



30 THE INTERMEDIATE WORLD. 

desires when the tired body drops, off. He 
may rather choose, as when waking with re- 
newed nerve and muscle, to fly through the 
universe without stopping, on, on, to its outer 
bounds, and back again before resting. We 
desire to rest because we are tired. When not 
tired, we seek the mountain's summit. 

But from all sentiment we turn for a moment 
to Revelation, seeking its report concerning 
consciousness in the Intermediate World. 

In the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, 
we read that in Hades a conversation passed 
between Abraham and the rich man ; but this 
power of conversation of necessity implies a 
condition of vivid and active consciousness.* 

Thus also the promise of our Lord to the 
penitent thief, '^ Thou shalt be with me in Par- 
adise" (the intermediate world), would better 
have read, "Thou shalt sleef with me in 
Paradise,'' had not conscious existence been 
meant, f 

Thus also in Luke we read these words : 

* For a fuller examination of this passage, see page 156. 
t See further exegesis of this passage, page 152. 



A WORLD OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 3I 

^'Now that the dead are raised, even Moses 
shewed at the bush, when he calleth the Lord 
the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, 
and the God of Jacob. 

'' For he is not a God of the dead, but of the 
living : for all live unto him." * 

The evident inference from this passage is 
that "the visible world of men and the invisible 
world of spirits both stand before God's eye as 
one communion of living ones." f The force 
of these words seems, indeed, to depend upon 
the possession of a living consciousness by- 
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, who were inhabi- 
tants of the Intermediate World. 

"Therefore we are always confident, know- 
ing that, whilst we are at home in the body, 
we are absent from the Lord : 

("For we walk by faith, not by sight :) 

"We are confident, I say, and willing rather 
to be absent from the body, and to be present 
with the Lord. 

" Wherefore we labor, that, whether present 
or absent, we may be accepted of him." | 

* Luke XX. 37, 38. t Professor Van Oosterzee. 

J 2 Cor. V. 6-9. 



32 THE INTERMEDIATE WORLD. 

The inference from this passage seems to be 
that absence from the body implies immediate 
and conscious presence and association with 
the Lord in the Intermediate World. 

In the First Epistle of Peter there is given 
the following account of what the crucified 
Saviour did during the interim between his 
death and resurrection : 

"For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, 
the just for the unjust, that he might bring us 
to God, being put to death in the flesh, but 
quickened by the Spirit : 

"By which also he went and preached unto the 
spirits in prison (in the Intermediate World) ; 

" Which sometime were disobedient, when 
once the long-suffering of God waited in the 
days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, 
wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by 
water." * 

There are additional passages throwing light 
upon this subject, which will be employed in 
other connections ; these are sufficient, we 

* I Peter iii. 18-20. For other important considerations 
involved in this passage, see page 80. 



A WORLD OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 33 

trust, to justify the proposition that the Bible 
teaches the conscious existence of all the dead 
now inhabiting the Intermediate World. 

That this Scriptural view has strong scientific 
support has already been hinted. Late inves- 
tigations have led many eminent scientists to 
take the position that the soul of man has 
properties which are entirely independent of 
matter. According to their representations the 
spirit is put into the physical body merely for 
convenience and development, and that its 
conscious existence no more depends upon the 
body in which it for a time abides, than does 
one's bodily existence depend upon any partic- 
ular house in which, for convenience, he may 
for a season take up his lodgings. It is with 
such convictions that men like Lotze, Wundt, 
and Ulric have turned with favor, even upon 
physiological grounds, — whence have come 
heretofore the more weighty objections to im- 
mortality, — to the doctrine of the continuance 
and consciousness of the individual soul after 
death. 

Dr. Carpenter, Fellow of the Royal Society 
3 



34 THE INTERMEDIATE WORLD. 

and Registrar of the University of London, 
finds in man a something — the soul — so far 
above and independent of the physical organ- 
ism, that there is suggested to his mind the 
relation existing between the Infinite Creator 
and the physical universe upon which He, as 
an independent existence, can act.^ No more, 
therefore, would the destruction or the change 
of the bodily organism destroy the soul, ac- 
cording to this eminent scientist, than would 
the destruction or the change of the earth de- 
stroy the infinite and independent Being who 
created it. 

Two eminent German investigators, Fritsch 
and Hitzig, also Professor David Ferrier, of 
King's College, London, by certain curious 
experiments, have proved that the brain is but 
a keyboard upon which something distinct 
from the board must play in order to produce 
certain required and apparent results.^ 

It is shown also that, though a defect in the 
physical organism may interfere with the per- 
formance, still the performer — the soul — may 
not be sick ; precisely as the musician may be 



A WORLD OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 35 

in faultless trim to strike the keys, though the 
keyboard may be demolished before his fingers 
reach it. 

Says Professor Ferrier : "The development 
of the frontal lobes is greatest in men with the 
highest intellectual powers ; and, taking one 
man with another, the greatest intellectual 
power is characteristic of the one with the 
greatest frontal development. The phrenolo- 
gists have, I think, good grounds for local- 
izing the reflective faculties in the frontal 
regions of the brain, and there is nothing in- 
herently improbable in the view that frontal 
development in special regions may be indic- 
ative of power of concentration of thought and 
intellectual capacity in special directions." 

But supposing there is no frontal develop- 
ment, as in case of an idiot; even then the 
skill and majesty of the soul may really be 
none the less ; the soul in this instance is sim- 
ply denied a suitable instrument upon which 
to display its artistic endowments. 

In still another passage this same eminent 
Professor says : 



36 THE INTERMEDIATE WORLD. 

"The brain, as an organ of motion and sen- 
sation, or presentative consciousness, is a single 
organ composed of two halves ; the brain as 
an organ of ideation, or re-presentative con- 
sciousness, is a dual organ, each hemisphere 
complete in itself. When one hemisphere is 
removed or destroyed by disease, motion and 
sensation are abolished unilaterally, but mental 
operations are still capable of being carried on 
in their completeness through the agency of the 
one hemisphere. The individual who is par- 
alyzed as to sensation and motion by disease 
of the opposite side of the brain (say the right) , 
is not paralyzed mentally, for he can still feel, 
and will, and think, and intelligently compre- 
hend with the one hemisphere. If these func- 
tions are not carried on with the same vigor as 
before, they at least do not af^ear to suffer in 
respect of eoin^leteness.^^ 

In this case it will be noticed that half the 
body is paralyzed, but the invisible soul con- 
tinues in full all the same its mental opera- 
tions. We thus approach, at least, the colossal 
physiological conclusion that the removal of 



A WORLD OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 37 

the entire brain, tissue and cell, would not 
destroy nor hurt the invisible soul ; it would 
simply take away the physical means of com- 
munication; as we cannot fully identify the 
musician unless giving him a perfect keyboard, 
with four banks or more, and its half hundred 
stops. 

We may still further fortify the foregoing 
conclusions by considering certain phenomena 
which are not uncommon among men. The 
activities which the soul displays in certain in- 
stances when losing partial or entire control 
of the body, are suggestive. The acuteness 
with which man hears, the clearness of his 
sight, the keenness of his perceptions, and the 
powers of his memory and conscience, all go 
to show that his conscious, spiritual activity 
does not depend upon healthy, or normal, con- 
dition of the physical organism. Even when 
the union of soul and body is much disturbed, 
the living agent seems for the moment, in some 
instances, to be all the more preternaturally 
endowed. 

There are instances, likewise, where per- 



38 THE INTERMEDIATE WORLD. 

sons, to all outward appearances, have been 
dead. They have remained thus for hours and 
days. Not a pulse could be felt, not a breath 
was drawn; the lips were bloodless and eyes 
sunken. Afterwards they have recovered their 
animation, and in many cases have borne tes- 
timony that, during all the time of this sus- 
pended animation, though they had lost entire 
control over the body, as much so as if there 
had been a complete separation from it, yet a 
most perfect and vigorous consciousness of 
every passing event had been maintained. 
Every preparation for burial was noted ; every 
word spoken was heard and remembered. 

While these cases of suspended animation 
do not demonstrate, they manifestly look in the 
direction of a certain independence of the soul, 
affording, therefore, a ground for holding to 
the conscious existence of the soul when its 
skilful fingers are removed beyond the reach 
of the keyboard. 

From these physiological we pass for a mo- 
ment to certain psychological evidences in 



A WORLD OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 39 

support of the proposition that soul-conscious- 
ness is possible after death. 

A well-known illustration is found in the 
Life of Dr. Francis Way land. When, on a 
certain occasion, he was expected home from 
New York, in the winter of 1814, Mrs. Way- 
land, his mother, who was sitting with her 
husband, suddenly walked the room in great 
agitation, saying, ^^Pray for my son; Francis 
is in danger." So urgent was her request that 
her husband joined her in prayer for his de- 
liverance from peril. At the expected time he 
arrived home. His mother at once asked, 
"What has taken place?'* It turned out that 
at the time of her alarm, while coming up the 
North River on a sloop, Francis had fallen 
overboard, and the sloop passed over him. 
Being an expert swimmer, he readily kept 
himself afloat until rescued. 

A certain woman, the wife of a sea-captain, 
started from her sleep at midnight, and ex- 
claimed, " O God ! my husband is lost ! " Sub- 
sequently it appeared that the ship on which 



40 THE INTERMEDIATE WORLD. 

her husband sailed went down In a storm, and 
at that very hour. 

We need not pause to multiply illustrations 
of this kind. Every household, almost, has Its 
witness. The task before us Is to ascertain, if 
possible, the basis of these phenomena. 

We must at the outset confess that here Is 
soul-action which passes beyond the range 
of ordinary sensation. Here appears to be a 
conscious activity of man, which depends in 
no way upon his hand, his ear, or his eye. 
May not Wayland's mother have felt danger 
by being herself consciously near it? May 
not the wife who felt the loss of her husband 
have had a conscious activity hundreds of 
miles distant from her own physical or recog- 
nized presence? are pertinent questions. 

The knowledge obtained in these cases was 
most certainly not from the spirit of the dead 
son coming to the mother, not from the spirit 
of the dead husband coming to his wife ; but 
can we as confidently say that it was not ob- 
tained by the mother's own soul while visiting 
the boy In danger, or In death? 



A WORLD OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 4I 

Does not the language of Paul go very far 
in proving the possibility of such an absent, 
conscious activity? ^^I knew a man in Christ, 
above fourteen years ago, whether in the body 
I cannot tell, or whether out of the body I can- 
not tell ; such a one caught up to the third 
heaven." 

If it is admitted that the soul is capable of a 
conscious activity in one place, while the body 
is in another, — and ten thousand incidents of or- 
dinary life, and the facts of second-sight seeing, 
so far as they have any reliable basis, demand 
such admission, - — it follows that if such rela- 
tions can exist for one moment, they may 
equally well exist for a day, or a year ; nay, 
more : the bodily organism might be annihi- 
lated before the return of that absent activity, 
and the full pla}^ of its potential majesty might 
be still in an undisturbed existence. In this 
instance, while the musician is absent, some- 
body takes away the piano. 

Thus, from experimental science and from 
various phenomena of life, it is as clear as any 
demonstration can make subjects of this char- 



42 THE INTERMEDIATE WORLD. 

acter, that the soul which plays upon the phys- 
ical and nervous mechanism is intact ; that the 
^' dissolution of the brain is no more proof of 
the dissolution of the soul than the dissolution 
of the piano is proof of the dissolution of the 
musician who plays it ; *' and though nature 
wisely and kindly provides that ordinarily the 
window through which consciousness looks 
shall be slightly darkened at the moment when 
the soul and body part company, still it is evi- 
dent, enough so at least to satisfy all save the 
utterly incredulous, — such, we mean, as refuse 
belief in any statement excepting " two times 
one are two," — that whilst death lays violent 
hands upon the physical organism, the spiritual 
inhabitant is not touched ; and that without 
much delay, the curtain will be drawn back, 
and, without knowing how or when the tran- 
sition was accomplished, the soul will find itself 
out of one world and in another. Such are 
the slight interruptions and disturbances at 
death. 

But after that, on through the intermediate 
period, also while passing through the stupen- 



A WORLD OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 43 

dous events of the Resurrection and the Judg- 
ment, likewise amid those scenes still more 
distant, which are endless, the soul-conscious- 
ness, as it seems, will never know either 
darkened window or eclipse. 



^ttdt WcrJd* 



45 



Ill- 
^uhI World. 



A MUTILATED corpse, a dirk, spotted with 
gore, near by, and a man washing his blood- 
stained hands in a brook at a distance, consti- 
tute a grouping sometimes witnessed. 

The bloody dirk with which the murder 
was perpetrated had no choice in the crime ; 
the associations are such, perhaps, as to startle 
us when looking upon or handling it, but 
of itself that blade is perfectly harmless and 
guiltless. Those hands, too, of the mur- 
derer had no choice in the crime ; they could 
no more have said "yes," or "no," than could 
the dirk. The associations are such, perhaps, 
as would cause a shudder were those palms 
stretched towards us; but of themselves they 
are likewise as harmless and guiltless as if 

47 



48 THE INTERMEDIATE WORLD. 

lifted to heaven in prayer or praise. The same 
may be said of the purely physical forces of 
the murderer. Hence, back of the dirk, the 
hands, the arms, and the purely physical 
forces, is the real assassin ; wsouls, not bodies, 
are always the guilty parties. Does the 
hand of a soulless body ever assassinate?* 
If not, and all modern philosophy so reports, 
then the statement receives justification that it 
is antecedently just as probable that there 
should be envy, jealousy, malice, revenge, or 
murderous intention in disembodied as in em- 
bodied souls ; and that it is antecedently just 
as probable that contact with malicious souls 
should in some way be as harmful in the 
future as in the present world. If, therefore, 
it is right in the present life to have bolts and 
locks placed between good and wrong inten- 
tions, is there any reason for not expecting that 
there will be effective barriers placed between 
such intentions in the life to come? These 
statements are made to remove existing preju- 

* Compare Matt. v. 22, 28, 29; Mark vii. 21-23. 



A DUAL WORLD. 49 

dices against certain doctrines and texts to 
which we now call attention. 

Light will be thrown upon these Bible inves- 
tigations if there is noted, in this connection, 
the fact that both the ancient Greeks and the 
Jews divided the Intermediate World into two 
parts, one division being the temporary abode 
of the righteous, the other being the temporary 
abode of the unrighteous^ 

The Jews, after their exile, gave the name 
Paradise to that one of these compartments 
in which are the righteous, and the name 
Gehenna to the other, in w^hich are the wicked. 
Those view^s prevailed until the advent of our 
Lord; he at no time, and by no hint, taught 
otherwise, and in many of his sayings gave 
the strongest possible confirmation as to the 
correctness of these established opinions which 
had been gathered from Revelation, the schools 
of the prophets, and perhaps from other sources,^ 
and which are firmly maintained by Ortho- 
doxy even to the present time. 

As a matter of convenience in these inquiries, 
we make use of the following terms to express 

4 



50 THE INTERMEDIATE WORLD. 

the Jewish and Scriptural views of the Unseen 
Life. 

First, Hades^ in which are temporary abodes 
for all the dead, including the righteous and 
the unrighteous. Second, Paradise-Hades ^ in 
which are the temporary resting-places of the 
righteous. Third, Gehenna-Hades^ in which 
are the temporary prisons of the unrighteous. 
Fourth, Paradise Profer^ or the Heaven of 
heavens, in which will be the royal homes of 
the righteous after the Judgment. Fifth, Ge- 
henna Prober ^ or Hell, into which are cast the 
unrighteous after the Judgment.^ 

In harmony with this view of the unseen 
world, it appears still further that Paradise- 
Hades and Paradise Proper hold to one another 
the following relations : The one is preliminary 
and temporal ; the other is permanent and 
eternal. The one, Paradise-Hades, begins at 
death and ends wdth the Resurrection ; the 
other, Paradise-Proper, the Heaven of judicial 
rewards, begins at the conclusion of the Judg- 
ment and lasts forever ; in it will be found the 
faultless realizations of all the ideal plans of 



A DUAL WORLD. 5 1 

God ; therefore endless duration may be predi- 
cated of every object therein met ; every crea- 
tion in that world is fittest, hence its survival 
is secured. 

It appears, likewise, that Gehenna-Hades 
and Gehenna Proper, the abodes of the wicked, 
bear to one another relations similar to those 
just mentioned as existing between the abodes 
of the righteous. On the one hand is a place 
preliminary and temporal ; on the other, a place 
permanent and eternal. Gehenna-Hades, be- 
ginning at death, ends at the Resurrection ; 
Gehenna Proper, the Hell of judicial punish- 
ment, beginning at the conclusion of the Judg- 
ment, will last, according to the explicit state- 
ments of our Lord, forever .^^ 

We are now prepared, with definite terms at 
command, to examine still more critically the 
disclosures of Revelation upon this otherwise 
perplexing subject. 

The language of our Lord to one of those 
crucified with him is intensely interesting and 
suggestive. Said that penitent malefactor : 



52 THE INTERMEDIATE WORLD. 

"Jesus, Lord, remember me when thou 
comest into thy kingdom." 

"To-day," replied the Saviour, " shalt thou 
be with me (not in heaven, but) in Paradise." * 
There is evidently meant by the word " Para- 
dise" that compartment of the Intermediate 
World which is termed Paradise-Hades, the 
resting-place of the redeemed until the morning 
of the Resurrection. 

Thus likewise the language of Paul, when 
speaking of a remarkable vision granted him, 
is full of significance. Of this revelation he 
seems to have said nothing for fourteen years ; 
it appeared to him unlawful to speak much con- 
cerning such revelations, as, perhaps, to more 
than one devout heart which has similar secrets I 

But the Corinthians were priding themselves 
upon their visions, and thus Paul was induced 
to speak of what he had seen. In the account 
he employs the term "third heaven." There 
is no need of a misleading in the interpretation, 
if there is borne in mind what is meant by 
the three heavens of the Jews. Their first 

* Luke xxiii. 42, 43. 



A DUAL WORLD. 53 

heaven was the atmosphere where the birds 
fly and the clouds gather : thus they speak of 
the birds of heaven. Their second heaven 
was the space beyond, where the sun, moon, 
and stars are placed. But neither of these was 
ever spoken of as the abode of the saved. It 
is the third, or the Heaven of heavens, which 
was represented as the home of God's family, 
including, as a general term, both the tempo- 
rary Paradise-Hades and the eternal Paradise 
Proper. With this understanding of the term 
"third heaven," the passage before us casts a 
marvellously pleasant light upon the Paradise 
division of the Intermediate World. 

" It is not expedient for me doubtless to glory. 
I will come to visions and revelations of the 
Lord. 

" I knew a man in Christ above fourteen 
years ago, (whether in the body, I cannot tell ; 
or whether out of the body, I cannot tell : God 
knoweth ;) such an one caught up to the third 
heaven [the intermediate abode of God's 
family] . 

''And I knew such a man (whether in the 



54 THE INTERMEDIATE WORLD. 

body, or out of the body, I cannot tell : God 
knoweth ;) 

'^ How that he was caught up into Paradise^ 
and heard unspeakable words, which it is not 
lawful for a man to utter." * 

Here the words "paradise" and "third 
heaven " are employed synonymously. If, 
therefore, the ultimate Paradise is not yet in 
readiness, as we have supposed, then Paradise- 
Hades, the quiet but beautiful resting-place in 
which the righteous are in waiting for the final 
Judgment, must be that which was seen by the 
apostle ; an abode in which are all the righteous 
who have died from Adam down to the present 
hour.^^ 

We next note certain passages which appear 
to have exclusive reference to Gehenna-Hades. 

Upon an occasion of interest, our Lord cast 
out an evil spirit, the account of which reads 
thus : 

"And Jesus asked him, saying, What is thy 
name? And he said, Legion: because many 
devils were entered into him. 

* 2 Cor. xii. 1-4. 



A DUAL, WORLD. 55 

"And they besought him that he would not 
command them to go out into the deep." * 

This " deep " no commentator doubts is Ge- 
henna-Hades, that intermediate prison where 
are to be found fallen spirits and wicked men.ii 
In the Second Epistle of Peter is recorded 
the following language : 

"For if God spared not the angels that 
sinned, but cast them down to hell {Hades), 
and delivered them into chains of darkness, to 
be reserved unto judgment," t &c- 

No words could teach more clearly than do 
these the confinement of conscious beings in 
Gehenna-Hades. 

Likewise in the Epistle of Jude are found 
confirmatory statements. "And the angels 
which kept not their first estate, but left their 
own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting 
chains under darkness unto the judgment of 
the great day." % 

Thus, according to these passages, this 
place, this gloomy prison, in which are con- 
fined rebellious angels, whose restraints and 
* Luke viii. 30, 31- t 3 Peter ii. 4- X J^i^e, 6. 



56 THE INTERMEDIATE WORLD. 

chains are never to be entirely loosened, not 
even amid the Judgment scenes, — this place, 
which was doubtless prepared originally, as 
was Gehenna Proper, for "the devil and his 
angels," * is the Gehenna-Hades of the Inter- 
mediate World, in which are detained, under 
confinement more or less strict, all the un- 
righteous who have died from Cain, the mur- 
derer, down to the present hour. 

One of the most remarkable passages bearing 
upon this subject is our Lord's definite account 
of the Intermediate World in the parable of the 
rich man and Lazarus. It reads thus : 

"There was a certain rich man, which was 
clothed in purple and fine linen and fared 
sumptuously every day : 

"And there was a certain beggar named 
Lazarus, which was laid at his gate, full of 
sores, 

"And desiring to be fed with the crumbs 
which fell from the rich man's table : moreover 
the dogs came and licked his sores. 

"And it came to pass that the beggar died, 

* Matt. XXV. 41. 



A DUAL WORLD. 57 

and was carried by the angels into Abraham's 
bosom. The rich man also died, and was 
buried : 

"And in hell (^Iladcs) he lifted up his eyes, 
being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar 
off, and Lazarus in his bosom. 

"And he cried, and said. Father Abraham, 
have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he 
may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool 
my tongue : for I am tormented in this flame. 

"But Abraham said. Son, remember that 
thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, 
and Hkewise Lazarus evil things : but now he 
is comforted, and thou art tormented. 

"And besides all this, between us and you 
there is a great gulf fixed : so that they which 
would pass from hence to you, cannot ; neither 
can they pass to us, that would come from 
thence." * 

There is, therefore, in this parable a rep- 
resentation given by our Lord himself of the 
condition of a rich and heartless man, also the 
condition of a poor and good man immediately 

* Luke xvi. 19-26. 



S8 THE INTERMEDIATE WORLD. 

after death ; they are consequently in the In- 
termediate World. Thus, beforehand, by the 
permission of the Master, mankind can look 
upon two distinct types of character as they 
exist in that mean-time^ after natural death and 
before the Resurrection and the Judgment. 

The facts presented in this account are easily 
noted and arranged. First, the wicked man 
and the good man are each represented as 
being in a definite place called Hades. The 
wicked man speaks of the locality in which he 
is confined as a place.* Second, the place is 
described as one of conscious existence ; the 
personalities appearing therein are real, and 
the transactions and conversations are vivid 
and lifelike. Third, this intermediate abode 
is shown to be such that the righteous are sep- 
arated from the unrighteous by impassable 
barriers. This thought is, indeed, the key- 
note of the passage. 

"And besides this, between us and you there 
is a great gulf j^;^'^^^." f Fourth, the separa- 
tion is said to be such that the unrighteous in 
* Verse 28. t Verse 26. 



A DUAL WORLD. 59 

Gehenna-Hades can see and converse with the 
righteous who are in Paradise-Hades.^^ 

This last fact is doubtless the most perplex- 
ing feature of the entire parable. The diffi- 
culties would seem to be far less if the barriers 
had been described as of scaleless height and 
of impenetrable thickness, and if the gulfs had 
been represented as of measureless depths and 
breadths. 

Yet in this instance, as not unfrequently in 
others, lapse of time and curious discoveries 
make consistent and radiant what has hitherto 
been obscure and difficult. This conversation 
between Abraham and the rich man, at great 
distances apart, is less perplexing to-day than 
ever before. Distance is no longer measured 
by rods and furlongs. By a click of the fingers 
upon the cable-graph and telegraph, our think- 
ing is instantly reported in every part of the 
habitable globe. Barriers deep or high no 
longer prevent verbal communications, or even 
exact individual intonations. The telephone, 
even while yet in its infancy, repeats concerts, 
given before one audience, to another audience 



6o THE INTERMEDIATE WORLD. 

in another city miles away. The whole at- 
mosphere of that Intermediate World maybe a 
telephone ; if so, no greater difBculties would 
attend communications between the righteous 
and the unrighteous dead than attend commu- 
nications in this present world between the 
righteous and the unrighteous living. Moun- 
tains, as well as gulfs, in the Intermediate World 
need not, therefore, interfere with the astound- 
ing vocal penetration of even a whisper, nor 
with the quickest imaginable discernment of 
sound by the spiritual hearing. When free- 
dom from dull physical senses is the condition, 
and the removal of gross material barriers is 
effected, then the sweep of the spiritual vision 
may be next to infinite. At least, from the un- 
easiness of the soul in its present environments,^^ 
and from the latest scientific disclosures, as 
well as from this account given by our Saviour, 
we are led to believe, that in the Intermediate 
World there are no obstacles such as will 
intercept the speech of its widely separated 
peoples, or cut off the startling vision of the 
spiritual eye searching through inhabitable 



A DUAL WORLD. 6x 

regions and spaces the nearest and the more 
remote. 

Thus far the discussion has shown from an- 
tecedent probability, from Scripture announce- 
ments, and from reason and the nature of the 
case, that the Intermediate World is a definite 
place, where the inhabitants are conscious, and 
where they are separated one from another, 
according as they have been and are righteous 
or unrighteous. So evidently reasonable is the 
doctrine of such temporary separation that the 
theory is rarely called in question, at least by 
persons who entertain views relating to the 
future at all religious. Universalists and Uni- 
tarians who give any thought to the subject 
fully believe in a place of imprisonment or 
punishment after death, prepared for such as 
deserve it ; when suitably punished there will 
follow, according to the theories of these de- 
nominations, a restoration of the wicked to the 
place in which have been the righteous ; but 
the preliminary separation is believed, never- 
theless, to be inevitable. 1^ The unbiased judg- 
ment of the race, we may therefore safely say, 



62 THE INTERMEDIATE WORLD. 

IS in harmony with Bible representations as to 
the two distinct apartments of the Intermediate 
World. When the Scriptures declare, directly 
and indirectly, that after death there is a defi- 
nite place for the righteous, and just as defi- 
nite, but distinct, a place for the unrighteous, 
mankind reply, That is what ought to be, and 
from the nature of the case is what must be. 
Indeed, every lock placed on the door, and 
every bolt on the windows of our dwellings, is 
an indorsement of the doctrine of two apart- 
ments in Hades. Every prisoner placed within 
stone walls or behind iron gratings, and every 
murderer who is swung from the gallows, is a 
startling plea to heaven that society cannot 
and ought not longer to be worried with such 
malicious and harmful presence ; especially 
emphatic will be such desires when death re- 
leases men from this present probationary 
state. No mother w^ould like to have her 
darling child, while on earth, in company with 
such a belfry murderer as Piper ; would she 
any sooner like to have that child in his com- 
pany in the Intermediate World, especially if 



A DUAL WORLD. 6^ 

the mother remains on earth? If there should 
be no provisions hereafter to keep Piper and 
his victim apart, what reasons are there for 
supposing that there will be provisions which, 
in the Intermediate World, will prevent corrup- 
tion and spiritual vciurAo^r'i 

Persons in our midst die suddenly who are 
openly and secretly vicious ; extortioners and 
adulterers die while practising their iniquities; 
the murderer is killed while in the act of wilful 
and deliberate murder. Can any reasonable 
man believe that such sinners awake in the 
Intermediate World to a blissful and glorious 
consciousness? Is the simple article of death 
such as can convert defiance and curse into 
instant adoration and praise? Can any one 
imagine that such baseness and wickedness as 
is constantly practised on earth would be safe 
or suitable environments for the innocent and 
well-disposed when standing upon the threshold 
of the future life? 

The entire drift of the instincts of humanity 
is, as by a necessity, resolutely, and, so far as 
can be seen, forever set against the impenitent 



64 THE INTERMEDIATE WORLD. 

criminal. It will not fraternize with him. It 
ostracizes him. It demands a separate place 
for him. It puts upon him a brand-mark or a 
criminal suit. Does the hardened and gross 
adulterer grow sick? still we guard our famihes 
against him. Does he come even to death's 
door? still we suspect him. Suppose he passes 
by one step to the other side of the door? Is he 
purified by that step? If not, his place must 
be apart ; nor can it be a place otherwise than 
doleful and gloomy. 



^arld of f^ixedmBB, 



6s 



IV. 



No one doubts that the normal condition of 
humanity is one of soul and body. Life in 
the Intermediate World is, therefore, a state 
of greater or less unnaturalness ; dis-embodi- 
ment implies imperfection. This abnormal 
condition very likely is a consequence of sin. 
But for transgression, heaven, perhaps, would 
have been a direct development out of the 
earth; in this case, the Judgment would not 
have been necessary, nor would there have 
been, so far as w^e can reason, the need of an 
Intermediate World. From earth to heaven 
by translation could then have been the uni- 
versal and triumphant method of demise. Of 
every man, as of Enoch, it could have been 

67 



68 THE INTERMEDIATE WORLD. 

said, He "walked with God, and was not; for 
God took him." * 

But for sin, two friends ever and anon would 
have been walking together, and it could 
have been recorded of them, as of Elijah and 
Elisha : 

"And it came to pass, as they still went on, 
and talked, that behold, there appeared a 
chariot of fire, and horses of fire, and parted 
them both asunder ; and Elijah went up by a 
whirlwind into heaven. 

"And Elisha saw it, and he cried. My father, 
my father, the chariot of Israel, and the horse- 
men thereof! And he saw him no more*" f 

Had there been no sin, every man, when 
conscious that his earthly mission was about 
accomplished, would, perhaps, have gathered 
his friends upon the summit of some mountain, 
and have parted their company as did Christ 
when leaving the disciples. The account 
might have read as the following : 

"And when he had spoken these things, 

* Gen. V. 24. t 2 Kings, ii. 11, 12. 



A WORLD OF FIXEDNESS. 6() 

while they beheld, he was taken up ; and a 
cloud received him out of their sight. 

"And while they looked steadfastly toward 
heaven as he went up, behold, two men stood 
by them in white apparel ; 

"Which also said, Ye men of Galilee, why 
stand ye gazing up into heaven? this same 
Jesus which is taken up from you into heaven, 
shall so come in like manner as ye have seen 
him go into heaven. 

"Then returned they unto Jerusalem, from 
the mount called Olivet, which is from Jeru- 
salem a sabbath-day's journey." * 

From such a funeral service men could re- 
turn with eyelids not wet and a smile on the 
face. How sin has cursed this world ! 

By the fall it is made necessary to enter the 
other world through the gateways of death ; 
and made necessary also for the race to remain 
under a kind of arrest in the Intermediate 
World, while universal human probation con- 
tinues, and until the morning of the Judgment 
day dawns. ^^ 

* Acts i. 9-12. 



70 THE INTERMEDIATE WORLD. 

The orthodox view is very firmly established 
as to fixedness of moral character. We see 
no reason, therefore, why fixedness, to some 
extent, may not be predicated in other respects 
also. A soul, without a physical organism, or 
without a spiritualized organism, such as it 
will possess after the Resurrection, may have, 
and no doubt will have, perfect consciousness ; 
its powers or opportunities for certain kinds of 
development may, nevertheless, be much inter- 
fered with. The soul may think, and theorize, 
and idealize ; but the development of the man- 
ifested and available skill would seem to de- 
pend upon a fitting organization ; as in case 
of the musician, who can theorize, but achieve- 
ment in skill demands a piano. 

The changes that are to take place at, or 
after, the Resurrection, which will be, doubt- 
less, of immense moment and magnitude, are 
perhaps to be very greatly affected by all the 
processes of the soul between death and the 
Resurrection ; much potential power may there- 
fore accumulate during the Intermediate Pe- 
riod ; much that will have sudden blooming in 



A WORLD OF FIXEDNESS. 7I 

the re-embodiment, when "the dead hear his 
voice and come forth ; " still, that mean-time 
may constitute a check. Should there be 
actual developments, yet, owing to an unnat- 
uralness growing out of the unnaturalness of 
disembodiment, they may not be especially 
available when again the soul takes to itself a 
body. It is not until after the Resurrection, 
v/hich involves both the return of the soul from 
the Intermediate World, and its re-embodiment, 
that the redeemed are to rejoice in the sublimi- 
ties of true and eternal developments ; then con- 
ditions arise which answer to perpetual youth, 
and to perpetual and perfect manhood. Then 
will the impeded laws and undeveloped tenden- 
cies bring forth perfect fruit. The dwarf and 
infant will grow to the stature of manhood. 
The healing power of Christ will make the 
lame walk, the blind see, and the old young. 
To every one will be restored his own and old 
identity. Upon every feature of those who 
are redeemed will glow the radiance and se- 
renity of heaven. Each will wear the full and 
perfect image and superscription of the Master 



72 THE INTERMEDIATE WORLD. 

of the Feast. While, therefore, it is said of 
the inhabitants of the Intermediate World, as 
to their moral character, " He that is unjust, let 
him be unjust still : and he which is filthy, let 
him be filthy still : and he that is righteous, 
let him be righteous still : and he that is holy, 
let him be holy still ; " * why may it not also be 
added, ^' He that is aged, let him be aged still ; 
he that is in midlife, let him be in midlife still ; 
let the man be a man still ; the woman a woman 
still ; and let him that is a child be a child 
still"? 

If this is a correct supposition, old men will 
remain essentially old men, and children will 
remain essentially children throughout those 
intermediate ages ; each tree is to lie somewhat 
as it falls. 

But, it is asked, is such a strange arrest 
pleasant to think of? It seems thus to be some- 
times ordered, nevertheless. Of those who 
died in the faith, the apostle says : 

"And these all, having obtained a good re- 
port through faith, received not the promise : 

* Rev. xxii. ii. 



A WORLD OF FIXEDNESS. 73 

" God having provided some better thing for 
us, that they without us should not be made 
perfect." * 

Besides this, there are those who are greatly 
pleased with the thought that certain develop- 
ing processes are to be arrested in the Inter- 
mediate World. The mother can then greet 
her child with something of the fond caress 
with which she last embraced it. Children may 
greet children ; the delights of childhood rather 
than the delights of old age, seem fitting for 
those little ones, who, going out from our 
homes, have made them to us lonesome, some- 
times desolate. 

A child in a New England village, while 
upon his deathbed, fixing his eyes on the ceil- 
ing, and calling to his mother, asked, " What 
country is it which I see beyond the high 
mountains?'' The mother replied, "There 
are no mountains, my child ; you are with 
your mother in this room." Again he whis- 
pered, " O mother, I see a beautiful country, 
and children who are beckoning me to come 

* Heb. xi. 39, 40. 



74 THE INTERMEDIATE WORLD. 

to them. But there are high mountains be- 
tween us, too high for me to climb. Who 
will carry me over?" The mother was si- 
lenced ! But a few moments later the child, 
stretching out his emaciated hands, whispered, 
" Mother, the strong Man has come to carry 
me over the — " Then the child slept. 

It is the fond hope of many, that the mother 
may find her child somewhat as it left her : the 
same smile, the same pressure of the hand, 
perhaps ; perfect recognition, at least. 

If it is, therefore, true, that as the child-tree 
falls so it will lie throughout this intermediate 
period, what bereft mother will enter her 
protest? 

Perfect consciousness ; perfect recognition ; 
delights adapted to childhood, for children ; 
restorations of old acquaintances ; introduc- 
tions to Abraham and Moses, David and Eli- 
jah, John and Paul, Luther and Wesley, and 
to the saints who died but yesterday ; the for- 
mation of pleasant and lasting alliances ; plans 
for the endless future, — are not impossible in 
that resting-place which we call the Interme- 



A WORLD OF FIXEDNESS. 75 

diate Paradise. Songs of praise, such as souls 
can sing and hear ; adorations and thanksgiv- 
ings, such as souls can offer, will doubtless be 
expressed. 

That resting-place, we are confident, will 
surely be all that can be desired during the 
intermediate period. 

But some reader shakes his head, saying, 
" It cannot be : all this is but a dream of the 
author; we know nothing of the future." 

Yet some things are known, and some must 
be : we must die, and leave the present world. 
When we are dead, we shall be conscious ; 
not being infinite, we shall be somewhere. If 
we are conscious and somewhere, and if, also, 
we are the fast friends of the Eternal, who 
makes for righteousness, for order, and for 
beauty, — if we are friends of that sumptuous 
Entertainer of the Universe, then we need not 
fear; for that skilful Builder who has made 
this beautiful preparatory world which we now 
inhabit, must have prepared a Paradise-Hades, 
-perfect for its purpose ; fitting and delightful. 

To pause at this point, or pass to other divi- 



76 THE INTERMEDIATE WORLD. 

sions of this subject, would be the more pleas- 
ant course ; but the whole truth would not thus 
be told. We have to confess, upon reflection, 
that these thoughts of a separation between the 
righteous and the unrighteous in the Inter- 
mediate World, the one class being in a bliss- 
ful resting-place, the other in a gloomy prison, 
together with the thought of fixedness of moral 
character while in that world, force every 
thoughtful mind into the presence of some of 
the weightiest and saddest considerations im- 
aginable. 

The antecedent probabilities growing out of 
the nature and results of such separation and 
imprisonment establish still more firmly the 
fixed relations and conditions, and leave but 
the faintest, if indeed any, hope of the ultimate 
reform and release of those who die in their 
unrighteousness. 

It may not be wise to advance further, es- 
pecially in this new direction, without first 
taking our Scriptural bearings. What Bibli- 
cal light is there ? is a pertinent inquiry. 

The references to which attention is first 



A WORLD OF FIXEDNESS. 77 

called relate to our Lord's decent into Hades 
during the interim between his death and res- 
urrection. From the earliest times, the texts 
bearing upon this event have been regarded as 
exceedingly perplexing, and their exegesis has 
led to frequent and protracted discussion. 

To render the subject, therefore, as clear as 
its nature will allow, we group all those pas- 
sages which allude in any way to this Descen- 
sus ad Infernos, 

The conversation which passed between our 
Lord and the penitent thief is suggestive. A 
literal and grammatical translation is the fol- 
lowing : "And he said, Jesus, remember me 
at thy:,coming in thy kingdom ; and he said to 
him, Verily, to thee I say, this day {^w^qov^ 
with me shalt thou be in Paradise." * 

No scholarly interpretation of this passage 
can lead to any other decision as to its mean- 
ing, than that Jesus entered Paradise-Hades at 
the moment of his death, and shortly after v/as 
followed thence by the penitent thief at the 
moment of his death. The inference is that 

* Luke xxiii. 42, 43. 



78 THE INTERMEDIATE WORLD. 

this redeemed soul would be comforted by the 
presence and companionship of our Lord, when 
meeting together in the Intermediate World. 

Upon the day of Pentecost, after quoting a 
passage from the Psalms which refers to 
Christ,* Peter adds, "Therefore (David) being 
a prophet . . . spake concerning the resurrec- 
tion of Christ, that neither (was he) should he 
be left behind unto Hades, nor (did) should 
his flesh see corruption." f 

In this passage the statement of the descent 
into Hades is incidental to an argument de- 
signed to show the resurrection and the 
divinity of our blessed Master ; hence His 
object in making that visit to the Intermediate 
World, and what he did while there, are passed 
by the apostle in silence. 

Paul, in Ephesians, employs the following 
language : " But to each of us the grace was 
given according to the measure of the gift of 
Christ. On which account he saith. Having 
ascended to on high, he led captive captivity, 
he gave gifts to men. Now that he ascended, 

* Ps. xvi. lo. t A-cts ii. 30, 31. 



A WORLD OF FIXEDNESS. 79 

what is it, if not that also he descended to the 
lower (parts) of the earth?"* Rhetorically, 
grammatically, and exegetically, we are re- 
quired to look upon the phrase, "the lower 
parts of the earth," as a paraphrase for Hades, 
"which was employed to render more perfect 
the antithesis between " the earth " and the " on 
high." t 

What were the special services rendered by 
our Lord during his visit to the Intermediate 
World is not stated in this passage ; the simple 
fact of his presence there immediately after 
his crucifixion, is all that can be claimed. 

In the First Epistle of Peter are the more 
celebrated passages bearing upon the visit of 
our Lord to the Intermediate World. It has 
been almost impossible for exegets to agree 
among themselves, chiefly because, perhaps, 
each comes to the examination of the passage 
with his creed in his hands ; personally we 

* Eph. iv. 7-1 1. 

t Theophilus, Iren^us, Tertullian, and all the principal 
ancient writers; also Oldshausen, Stier, Alford, &c., take 
this view. 



8o THE INTERMEDIATE WORLD. 

fear the same embarrassment. We will at 
least attempt an honest exposition, whatever 
may be the results. All will agree, doubtless, 
to the following literal and grammatical trans- 
lation : 

"Because also Christ once for sins suffered, 
a just (person) for unjust (persons), in order 
that he might present us to God, being put to 
death, indeed, in the flesh, but being made 
alive in the spirit, in which (spiritual life), 
even to spirits in prison (Hades-Gehenna), 
passing over thither, he preached ; which 
(spirits in prison) were disobedient aforetime, 
when the long-suffering of God was waiting 
in the days of Noah, the ark being con- 
structed." * 

Such is the first passage. The second is 
the following : 

"For to this end, even to the dead, was 
preached the gospel ; in order that they might, 
indeed, be judged according to men in the 
flesh, but live according to God in the spirit." f 

It is evident from these texts that our Lord 

* I Peter iii. i8, 19. t i Peter iv. 6. 



A WORLD OF FIXEDNESS, 8l 

not only visited Hade^s between the event of 
his death and that of his resurrection, but also 
that he there preached his gospel ; preached 
it even in that part of the Intermediate World 
which is termed Gehenna-Hades. 

At first thought, there are presented in this 
rendering, it must be confessed, certain staunch 
difficulties in the way of the ordinary orthodox 
view, which is, that no probation is possible in 
the Intermediate World. If there is no possi- 
bility of a change of character in that world, 
why preach the gospel ? is the rigorous ques- 
tion. Nevertheless, is it not our duty to ascer- 
tain the exact meaning of the text? 

The words translated "in prison" are £^ 
(fvlaxri, and always mean a place of custody 
or imprisonment;* the reference can, there- 
fore, hardly refer to Paradise-Hades. Not 
only this, but the question of what part of the 
Intermediate World Christ entered, according 
to this account in the Epistle of Peter, and 

* Matt. V. 25; xiv. 3; xviii. 30; xxv. 36. Markvi. 17, 27. 
Luke ii. 8; xii. 58; xxi. 12; xxiii. 19. John iii. 24. Acts v. 
19; viii. 3. 2 Cor. vi. 5. Heb. xi. 36. Rev. xx. 7. 

6 



82 THE INTERMEDIATE WORLD. 

where he made some kind of announcements, 
is removed beyond controversy, because it is 
distinctly designated as the place where were 
confined at that time the disobedient, the hard- 
ened, and the rebellious antediluvians. There- 
fore we may confidently assert, that they of 
Gehenna-Hades listened to proclamations from 
the lips of our Lord during some part of the 
time which lapsed between his death and res- 
urrection. 

That the words spoken by him were not 
those of judicial condemnation, must likewise 
be admitted, inasmuch as the word translated 
"was preached the gospel," is evriyyeUadi]^ a term 
never employed in the sense of pure judicial an- 
nouncement. New Testament usage invaria- 
bly clothes it with the meaning, " to preach the 
gospel." * Grouping, therefore, the various 
passages bearing upon the Descensus ad Infer- 
nos^ the conclusion is forced upon the Bible 
student, that our Lord visited the Intermediate 

* Matt. iii. i; iv. 17, 23; ix. 35; x. 7; xxiv. 14. Mark i. 
14, 15, 38; iii. 14; vi. 12; xiii. 10; xiv. 15. Luke ix. 2. 
Acts ix. 20; X. 42, 43. I Cor. i. 23. Phil. i. 15. 2 Tim. iv. 2. 



A WORLD OF FIXEDNESS. 83 

World during the interim between his death 
and resurrection ; * that he entered Paradise- 
Hades to add to the joy of the righteous ; f 
that he entered Gehenna-Hades to announce 
the gospel ; J and by including other scripture 
we may still further infer that, while, as God, 
the God-man is to-day everywhere, yet, as 
man, he can be anywhere, but must be some- 
where, and doubtless is in, and is the recog- 
nized King of the Intermediate World. § 

While, therefore, giving the freest and full- 
est meaning to these various texts, it will be 
observed that they do not, in any sense, teach 
the universal recovery of the unrighteous ; they 
do not teach, nor even intimate, a second 
probation after death, because they do not 
teach whether the " gospel," though preached 
in Gehenna-Hades, was a savor of life unto 
life, or of death unto death to its inhabi- 
tants. ^^ 

But, is it asked in reply, of what possible 

* Acts ii. 27-31. t Luke xxiii. 42, 43. 

J I Peter iii. 19, 20. 

§ Jude, 14. I Thess. iii. 13. Acts vii. S5i 5^- Ezek. i. 26. 



84 THE INTERMEDIATE WORLD. 

use it could have been for our Lord to " preach 
the gospel" in Gehenna-Hades, provided the 
condition of its inhabitants is unalterably 
fixed? 

Of the designs of the Infinite, in this as v^ell 
as in many other instances, we are not defi- 
nitely informed ; still there are certain pas- 
sages which greatly relieve what seems other- 
wise to be a very serious embarrassment. 

Under the old dispensation were such an- 
nouncements as the following : 

"And he said unto me, Son of man, I send 
thee to the children of Israel, to a rebellious 
nation that hath rebelled against me : they and 
their fathers have transgressed against me, 
even unto this very day. 

" For they are impudent children and stiff- 
hearted. I do send thee unto them ; and thou 
shalt say unto them, Thus saith the Lord God. 

"And they, whether they will hear, or 
whether they will forbear, (for they are a re- 
bellious house,) yet shall know that there hath 
been a prophet among them." * 

* Ezek. ii. 3-5. 



A WORLD OF FIXEDNESS. 85 

In this instance there was but the slightest 
expectation, if indeed any whatever, that those 
hardened people would do otherwise than 
reject the message, and stone him who brought 
it; nevertheless, the message was to be deliv- 
ered all the same, and if for no other reason 
than that they might be left without excuse. 

A yet more startling instance is recorded in 
one of the prophecies of Isaiah. 

"And he said, Go, and tell this people, 
Hear ye indeed, but understand not ; and see 
ye indeed, but perceive not. 

" Make the heart of this people fat, and make 
their ears heavy, and shut their eyes ; lest they 
see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, 
and understand with their heart, and convert, 
and be healed." * 

In this, as in case of Pharaoh, the truth was 
announced to the people, though it was clearly 
known by Omniscience that such announce- 
ment would result in nothing else save the still 

* Isaiah vi. 9, 10. Compare Matt. xiii. 14; Mark iv. 12; 
Luke viii. 10; John xii. 40; Acts xxviii. 26; Rom. xi. 8. 



86 THE INTERMEDIATE WORLD. 

greater hardening of those who were already 
confirmed in their iniquity. 

Thus, likewise, our Lord again and again 
preached to the hypocritical, impious, and 
seared Pharisees and Rulers, when he fully 
knew that his words would only fill them with 
still greater transports of rage, and fasten upon 
them yet more firmly the chains of guilt al- 
ready clanking with every step and move- 
ment. 

Startling, almost appalling, are likewise the 
words of the great apostle. 

"For the mystery of iniquity doth already 
work : only he who now letteth will let, until 
he be taken out of the way. 

"And then shall that Wicked be revealed, 
whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit 
of his mouth, and shall destroy with the 
brightness of his coming : 

"Even him, whose coming is after the work- 
ing of Satan with all power and signs and 
lying wonders, 

"And with all deceivableness of unright- 
eousness in them that perish; because they 



A WORLD OF FIXEDNESS. 87 

received not the love of the truth, that they 
might be saved. 

''And for this cause God shall send them 
strong delusion, that they should believe a 
lie : 

"That they all might be damned who be- 
lieved not the truth, but had pleasure in un- 
righteousness." * 

Here is Scripture authority sufficient to show 
to any candid mind that God dispenses his 
favors and Christ preaches his gospel to the 
righteous and to the unrighteous, that all may 
be without excuse ; f nay, more, they show 
tha't, even upon the incorrigible and doomed, 
blessings are showered, and to them the gos- 
pel is preached, in order that, if for no other 
reason, their iniquity may be the more mani- 
festly and glaringly set forth ; nay, more than 
this, even : this scriptural authority establishes 
the appalling fact that hardened reprobates 
shall be yet more resolutely confirmed in their 
rebellion in consequence of the divine mercies 

* 2 Thess. ii. 7-12. f Comp. Rom. i. 18-25. 



88 THE INTERMEDIATE WORLD. 

which are dispensed to them, and by the gospel 
which is preached in their hearing.* 

But this scriptural view of the relations, 
effects, and designs of divine truth may be 
objected to by some reader; we therefore 
seek, for a moment, certain confirmations else- 
where. 

Is it not true, that in the present life one's 
physical condition may become such, that 
what would be medicine to others, will be to 
him poison? May there not be conditions 
such, indeed, that all medicines will become 
deadly, and all foods produce only leanness? 
Is there, then, any theological or physio- 
logical reason why it may not be thus with 
souls ? ^^ 

Says a Radical writer of some note, in the 
Monthly Religious Magazine of May, 1867 : 

" So with human nature. It is less and less 
adapted, with every year of neglect, to receive 
and nourish the seeds of virtue. Vices, whose 
germs were caught from the passing air, — 
who can tell where they came from, any more 

* See 2 Cor. ii. 15, 16. Comp. Ro. v. 20; vii. 7-10. 



A WORLD OF FIXEDNESS. 89 

than what sows the myriad weeds of the field ? 
— spring up in its soil. The freshness and 
wealth of feeling which belong to childhood 
are dried up. The roots of coarse and bitter 
passions thrid it through and through, and it 
is trodden down and hardened by the long 
tramp of a thousand worldly cares. Yea, it is 
a terrible fact that the higher and richer a 
man's opportunities are, the more hardening 
and deadening, if not improved aright, is their 
influence on the character. It is in the midst 
of Christian lands, in the full light of the 
Gospel, that we find the worst crimes, the 
most hardened, unrepentant criminals. The 
world has never had such irreversible sceptics 
and unbelievers as some of the men who stood 
in the very presence of Christ, seeing his mira- 
cles, hearing with their own ears his words 
of wisdom. The souls which blaspheme 
against the Holy Ghost beyond all hope of 
forgiveness, are the ones which have had the 
Spirit of God come so near, so direct before 
them, as to be conscious of him as a living 
person. You cannot increase a sinner's means 



90 THE INTERMEDIATE WORLD. 

of salvation without Increasing, at the same 
time and in the same things, his means of 
deeper damnation. The Gospel which is not 
a savor of life unto life, is, by its ver}'- nature, 
a savor of death unto death. And, unless the 
laws of a man's being are entirely changed, 
increasing its opportunities, going to that world 
where it will know more of truth and duty, 
and the light of God's Spirit, instead of making 
the soul sure of repentance, may only furnish 
it with the means of being more sceptical, 
more flinty, more blaspheming." 

Says the editor of this same magazine, in 
an earlier issue, July, 1861 : 

" The last results of punishment and suffer- 
ing in the future may be to bring evil beings 
into external conformity with such external 
privileges as they may be fitted to enjoy, while 
sin has forever closed the internal mind against 
the renewing grace and the bliss of angels. It 
may be one of the terrible results of confirmed 
and persevering wickedness, that the trans- 
gressor is degraded to a lower plane of exist- 
ence, and can only live there forever. There, 



A WORLD OF FIXEDNESS. 9I 

when the long-suffering and agony have 
broken the power of evil, he may enjoy the 
pleasures he has chosen, but not the heaven, 
which he has rejected. All this is quite con- 
ceivable, while an impassable gulf yawns be- 
tween those who have chosen to live for 
corruption and those who have chosen to live 
to the Divine glory." 

Here, therefore, is a Radical basis to rest 
the argument upon, if with such foundation 
any reader is better suited. It is in view of 
these universally recognized laws of human 
nature, and these ways of Providence which 
are constantly forcing themselves upon hu- 
man observation, that we feel fully justified 
in the prediction that in Gehenna-Hades hu- 
manity will be tested as never before ; the 
manifestations will then and there be unques- 
tionable. If we mistake not, the apostle hints at 
this principle, though incidentally, when speak- 
ing of the Judgment : " Every man's work shall 
be made manifest ; for the day shall declare 
it, because it shall be revealed by fire ; and 
the fire shall try every man's work of what 



92 THE INTERMEDIATE WORLD. 

sort it is." * On the day souls enter Gehenna- 
Hades, they will instantly appear worse than 
ever before, as those who enter Paradise-Hades 
will appear better. As the impenitent sinner 
begins to realize the difficulties or impossibili- 
ties of escape, and as he finds his case a 
seemingly hopeless one, then, unchecked by all 
ordinar}^ restraints, which have surrounded and 
have had their influence upon him during his 
lifetime, the evil in his heart rankling as never 
before for expression, is it too much to sup- 
pose, in view of the developments actually wit- 
nessed during the great crises of every-day 
life, that he will be so far abandoned as 
most bitterly and madly to curse God and his 
empire? Nay, more; is it too much to sup- 
pose that every offer of divine grace will then 
be spurned, the choice being to remain rather 
in company with those for whose association a 
life of unrighteousness and iniquity have made 
the abandoned one a fit companion, and that 
the often-repeated seasons of oscillation be- 
tween gross or splendid temptations and a 

* I Cor. iii. 13. 



A WORLD OF FIXEDNESS. 93 

morbid and futile penitence, will cease — and 
defiance alone remain? 

And, If possible, even more than this. Is It 
unreasonable to Infer that the kingdom of the 
evil one, with all Its hideous paraphernalia. Is 
to be thus Inaugurated ; that the forces In that 
man's nature which would have swayed him 
religiously, will henceforth sway him Irreli- 
giously ; that his light will thus be turned to 
darkness ; just as any property, '^ overwrought 
and carried to excess, turns Into Its own con- 
trary ; just as frost, raised to its utmost inten- 
sity, produces the same sensations as fire ; " 
that the passage-way to his better nature will 
thus be closed up, becoming like the narrow 
way, so narrow that the passage of virtue 
through It, from sheer difficulty, would be 
like the passage of a camel through a needle's 
eye ; that the passage-way to his evil nature, 
on the other hand, will be thus broadened, 
many being the dusty feet of bad things that 
ever afterwards pass up and over that way ; 
that the soul, seeing door after door closing 
behind it, — if we may be allowed the expres- 



94 THE INTERMEDIATE WORLD. 

sion in this connection, — shutting off possible 
return, will come into a state of greater and 
greater indifference; of whom it will be said, 
"careless and seared, the dreary wilds he 
treads"? Or is it unreasonable to infer that 
they of Gehenna-Hades will speedily come 
to love what they should hate, and hate what 
they should love ; joy in what they ought to 
mourn for, and mourn for what they ought to 
rejoice in; "glory in their shame, and be 
ashamed of their glory ; abhor what they 
should desire, and desire what they should 
abhor"? It is a frightful condition. But, in 
view of Bible representations and the laws of 
human nature, and the frequent ways of Prov- 
idence, is it unreasonable to infer that Ephraim 
may be inseparably joined to his idols ; that the 
lamps in his soul may be extinguished ; the 
altars overturned ; the light and love vanished ; 
the golden candlestick removed ; the comely 
order turned into confusion, and the house of 
prayer into a den of thieves ; so that the faded 
glory, the* darkness, the disorder, the impro- 
priety, the decayed state, shall show nothing 



A WORLD OF FIXEDNESS. 95 

henceforth save that the great and good inhab- 
itant is gone forever, the universe of intelligent 
beings reading henceforth over the stately 
ruins this doleful inscription — " Here God 
once dwelt, but dwells no more"? Such being 
the case, it remains that from that soul, 
in quick succession, henceforth shall proceed, 
in the words of our Lord, " evil thoughts, 
adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, cov- 
etousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, 
an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness." * 
When, therefore, these scriptural references, 
and these facts of human nature and of con- 
stantly recurring providences, are employed 
as a basis for explaining the preaching of the 
gospel in the Intermediate World to those 
hardened antediluvians, w-ho unmoved had 
listened for one hundred and twenty years to 
the preaching of one of God's prophets, and 
whose great age allowed them time to become 
most firmly and unalterably fixed in their moral 
determinations, and in their defiance to Jeho- 
vah, it must be confessed that much of the sup- 

* Mark vii. 21, 22. 



96 THE INTERMEDIATE WORLD. 

posed embarrassment connected with Christ's 
descent to Gehenna-Hades disappears. 

It is strictly in harmony with the nature and 
with the universal relations and unending ef- 
fects of the gospel, to conclude still further 
that every human being shall hear that gospel, 
and before the day of Judgment have clear 
and ample opportunities for embracing or re- 
jecting it. If these are correct inferences, then 
it follows that to every soul in Paradise-Hades, 
Christ, under the Spirit's illumination, will be 
presented ; and likewise to every soul in Ge- 
henna-Hades. But if the conditions of the 
dead in the Intermediate World are unalterably 
fixed, then it likewise follows, that Christ, when 
thus presented, will be accepted by every soul 
in Paradise-Hades, and will as surely and in- 
evitably be rejected by every soul in Gehenna- 
Hades. Every soul in that prison of rebellion, 
therefore, has already been, or will become, 
by a voluntary rejection of truth and light, at 
some time before the day of Judgment, even 
in the personal presence of Christ, and under 
the light of the Holy Ghost, a blasphemer. 



A WORLD OF FIXEDNESS. 97 

What force and significance this thought gives 
to the startling announcement of our Lord ! 

"Wherefore I say unto yoa, All manner of 
sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men : 
but the blasphem.y against the Holy Ghost 
shall not be forgiven unto men. 

"And whosoever speaketh a word against 
the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him : but 
whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost, 
it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this 
world, neither in the world to come." * 

But in order to clear this subject of certain 
imaginable difficulties still remaining, some- 
thing should be said as to the basis of the 
assignments of souls to the different apart- 
ments in the Intermediate World. How is it, 
and why is it, that one is assigned to Paradise- 
Hades, in unchanging security, while another 
is consigned to Gehenna-Hades, with no possi- 
bility of escape ? The reply involves the entire 
system of evangelical Christianity, and may be 
presented thus : — Redemption from sin, and 
salvation here and hereafter, depend upon 

* Matt. xii. 31, 32. Compare Hebrews vi. 4-6. 

7 



98 THE INTERMEDIATE WORLD. 

two fundamental considerations : first, compli- 
ance, on man's part, with certain conditions ; 
and second, provision, on God's part, of such 
arrangements as will be available, and such 
also as will not overthrow or undermine moral 
and divine government. Conditions and pro- 
visions, therefore, constitute the essence of 
redemption ; the conditions belonging to man, 
the provisions to God. The conditions, as we 
are informed, are made known to every moral 
agent; * with the conditions every moral agent 
can comply ; every one can repent ; every one 
can turn to God ; every one can " make for 
righteousness" if he wilL\ Those who do 
thus comply with the conditions will be saved, 
for God has repeatedly promised and pledged 
their redemption, and his word cannot be 
broken. 

Such the conditions. The provisions, on the 
other hand, belong to God. The atonement, 
He, not man, must provide; the Spirit's influ- 
ences, the revelations in nature, in mind, in 

* Rom. ii. 12-16. 

t Ezek. xviii. 19-32. Phil. ii. 12. Rev. xxii. 17. 



A WORLD OF FIXEDNESS. 99 

the written Word, and in the living Logos, are 
the majestic divine factors in human salvation. 
Upon these provisions, and upon no. others, all 
men must be saved, and will be saved, if they 
comply with the conditions. 

All who have thus complied, to the best of 
their knowledge and ability, while on earth, 
though they have never heard of Christ or of 
his salvation, — such, perhaps, as Socrates 
and Plato, Seneca and Marcus Aurelius, — 
and who, by complying with the conditions of 
salvation, have shown thereby that they would 
have accepted Christ had he been presented 
and understood, — will enter Paradise-Hades, 
and while there the glorious One will be pre- 
sented and instantly accepted; their previous 
compliance with the terms of salvation having 
made such acceptance morally inevitable. 
Those, on the other hand, who have not com- 
plied with the conditions, and who have rejected 
Christ w^hen presented and understood, or who 
would have rejected him if presented and un- 
derstood, will be consigned to Gehenna-Hades ; 
and while there, Christ will be presented, and 



TOO THE INTERMEDIATE WORLD. 

then immediately, and without solitary exception 
among the inhabitants, be defiantly rejected; 
their previous noncompliance with the terms of 
salvation having made such rejection morally 
inevitable. We are, therefore, forced to the 
stern conclusion that the presence and preach- 
ing of the Lord of Glory in the Intermediate 
World resulted only in establishing more 
fixedly, or at least unquestionably, the char- 
acter and condition of its inhabitants. 

Other passages bearing upon this subject 
should not be passed unnoticed. The follow- 
ing, from Ecclesiastes, is sometimes quoted as 
evidence of the unchangeableness of moral 
character after death : " And if the tree fall 
toward the south, or toward the north, in the 
place where the tree falleth, there it shall be." * 

The only legitimate inference from these 
words, however, is, that the nature of things is 
such that at length a stand-still is reached ; a 
law doubtless holding with more or less rigid- 
ness in every realm of the physical universe ; 
changelessness, at some point, as to moral 

*^Eccl. xi. 3. 



A WORLD OF FIXEDNESS. lOI 

character and intention, is therefore certainly, 
on analogical grounds, implied in this passage, 
though without involving the idea of date or 
circumstance. The same principle is set forth 
in Quintilian's statement that " From depraved 
influences arise, first, familiarity, then, na- 
ture." * Every man, first or last, has his 
Rubicon, is another form of expressing the 
thought. Thus likewise Hazlitt correctly says, 
that " people do not persist in their vices because 
they are not weary of them, but because they 
cannot leave them off*. It is the nature of vice 
to leave us no resource but in itself." 

A passage of more direct application is from 
the book of Revelation : 

" He that is unjust, let him be unjust still : 
and he which is filthy, let him be filthy still : 
and he that is righteous, let him be righteous 
still : and he that is holy, let him be holy 
still." t 

The interpretation which ancient Christian 

* Quintilian. 

t Rev. xxii. II. Compare Ezek. iii. 26; Dan. xii. 10; 
2 Tim. iii. 13. 



102 THE INTERMEDIATE WORLD. 

faith put upon this passage, and which has 
received the indorsement of the orthodox 
church of later date, is this: "In that condi- 
tion in which Christ finds us at death, therein 
shall we be judged." 

It must be confessed, however, that a text 
of far greater force and application than either 
of these is the one in which our Lord repre- 
sents Abraham as using the following language 
to the rich man, both being in the Intermediate 
World : " They that would pass from hence to 
you cannot; neither can they pass to us, that 
would come from thence."* There is not the 
slightest ground for question that our Lord de- 
signed in these words to teach unalterable fixed- 
ness as to the condition of souls in the interim 
between death and the Resurrection. Certain 
other passages allow of possible evasion. This 
does not. Had we quoted, for instance, his 
denouncement concerning Judas, "The Son of 
man indeed goeth, as it is written of him : but 
woe to that man by whom the Son of man is 
betrayed ! good were it for that man if he had 

* Luke xvi. 26. 



A WORLD OF FIXEDNESS. IO3 

never been born," * It might have been replied, 
that while the words " good were it for that 
man if he had never been born " certainly im- 
ply that Gehenna-Hades could not at any time 
be exchanged by Judas for Paradise-Hades, 
nor even Gehenna Proper for the ultimate 
Heaven, still, the same unalterableness may 
not necessarily be true in other cases; where, 
for instance, guilt has been less marked and 
aggravated. But in the parable before us, the 
rich man is not particularly specified, in Abra- 
ham's reply ; all the inhabitants, as well as 
Judas, are included ; all and each are equally 
interdicted. 

Or had we quoted those other words of the 
Master, which refer to certain sins having no 
possible forgiveness in this world or else- 
where,! it might likewise have been replied, 
whilst unpardonableness may be true of a given 
class of sins, still, other classes may allow of 
future forgiveness ; but in the parable before 
us this particular sin of blasphemy is not speci- 
fied ; the guilt of the rich man while on earth 

* Mark xiv. 21. t Matt. xii. 31, 32. 



I04 THE INTERMEDIATE WORLD. 

was in consequence of a selfish heartlessness ; 
his condition, by reason of this Christless- 
ness, was as unalterable as if he had been 
a blasphemer ; not only was his condition thus, 
but that of all others is represented as equally 
unalterable. ^^They that would^ cannot ^^'^ in- 
cludes all, and makes certain the fixed im- 
prisonment of every soul which has been 
assigned to Gehenna-Hades ; no release is 
hinted at, at least until the resurrection morn- 
ing; the lost will then be taken to judgment,* 
and thence be remanded to the nether and 
endless Gehenna. f 

" Nevertheless," we are sure some reader is 
asking, " may there not be a hope entertained 
that the intermediate condition will not be so 
utterly saddening for the finally impenitent as 
is here represented?" 

Did we dare, in view, not of what the 
church, but of v^'hat the Bible teaches, to rep- 
resent the condition of the unrighteous more 
hopefully, we would do so. But the one who 

* Matt. XXV. 31, 32. t Matt. xxv. 41, 46. 



A WORLD OF FIXEDNESS. IO5 

speaks upon these subjects hesitates to take 
personal responsibility, putting his own words 
for those of Revehition. There is a day be- 
yond, upon which his words, with all their 
consequences, are again to face him. Had a 
mortal been in that world, he could speak from 
personal observation ; not having passed its por- 
tals, ordinary humanity would better not ven- 
ture to contradict our Lord's disclosures, made 
direct or through his disciples, since he is the 
only one who has traversed those domains and 
who knows perfectly what is the condition of 
its inhabitants. 

They are not single passages, however, that 
have forced these sad conclusions upon us ; 
the entire drift of Bible thought and appeal is 
in perfect keeping with the views here pre- 
sented. Says a radical writer in a radical 
magazine : ''There is something almost startling 
in the urgency with which the Scriptures press 
upon us the use of our religious blessings. 
They warn, invite, persuade, command, be- 
seech, exhort, and threaten. Every avenue 
of the soul, every passion and sentiment, and 



I06 THE INTERMEDIATE WORLD. 

faculty and aspiration, of our nature Is ap- 
pealed to, if, by any means, they may get us 
to accept the offers of mercy." . . • 

" Would God have taken so much pains to 
reveal and urge upon him the means of salva- 
tion now, if, like the inventions and discoveries 
of art and science, it would have been just as 
well for him to wait until he had groped into 
them himself? The very fact of a revelation, 
as bearing on this subject. Is more than all its 
words. A person does not rush into a house 
and warn its occupants of danger, and urge 
them to escape, when a day or month hence 
will do just as well. There is something in 
that mighty Now which runs, as a deep under- 
tone, through all the Bible, which is a terrible 
hint that the future will not be as the present ; 
and when God breaks the great silence of 
eternity, and opens the way, and says, ^Come,' 
it must be, it is not safe for the soul to wait." 

Lest some reader should entertain the feel- 
ing that the foregoing views are merely the 
outgrowth of a cold and dogmatic orthodoxy, 
we call attention to the fact that several other 



A WORLD OF FIXEDNESS. IO7 

writers, belonging to so-called liberal schools 
of faith, have reached, upon both exegetical 
and philosophical grounds, essentially the same 
conclusions. 

That the Scriptures explicitly teach some 
sort of intense suffering for the impenitent 
after death, scarcely any one denies. ^^ In ad- 
dition to references already made, the follow- 
ing quotation from Dr. Dewey faithfully repre- 
sents the thinking of not a few who are classed 
with him among philosophic liberalists : 

"We know not what it is ; but we know that 
such terms and phrases as we read, — ^the 
wrath to come,' ^ the worm that dieth not,' 
'the fire that is not quenched,' 'the blackness 
of darkness,' 'the fiery indignation,' — that 
these words not only import what is fearful, 
but were intended to inspire a salutary dread. 
We know not what it is ; but we have heard 
of one who Hfted up his eyes being in torment, 
and saw the regions of the blessed afar off*, 
and cried and said, 'Father Abraham, have 
mercy on me ! for I am tormented in this 
flame.' We know not what it is ; but we know 



Io8 THE INTERMEDIATE WORLD. 

that the finger of inspiration has pointed awfully 
to that world of calamity. We know that in- 
spired prophets and apostles, when the inter- 
posing veil has been, for a moment, drawn 
before them, have shuddered with horror at 
the spectacle. We know that the Almighty 
himself has gathered and accumulated all the 
images of earthly distress and ruin, not to 
show us what it is, but to warn us of what it 
may be ; that he has spread over this world 
the deep shadows of his displeasure, leaving 
nothing to be seen, and everything to be 
dreaded ! And thus has he taught us, what I 
would lay down as the moral of these obser- 
vations, and of all my reflections on this sub- 
ject, that it is not our wisdom to s^eculate^ but 
to fcar.'''^ 

Dr. W. G. Eliot likewise gives expression 
to sentiments which disclose his estimate of 
both the suggestiveness and solemnity which 
should be attached to Bible representations 
of future suiFering. 

"The terms used in the Scripture, though 
strongly figurative, are not unmeaning words. 



A WORLD OF FIXEDNESS. IO9 

We may divest ourselves of the horror which 
their literal interpretation would convey, but 
we cannot set them aside. The Savior, in 
adopting as the expression for the punishment 
of the wdcked a word so full of terror as the 
valley of liinnom, took the surest way of de- 
claring that the sorrow of the sinful soul 
hereafter is beyond the power of tame words 
to describe." 

Respecting the character and intensity of 
the suffering of the impenitent in the future 
life, there are statements drawn likewise by 
Liberalism from purely philosophic considera- 
tions, which well-nigh match any representa- 
tions made by the strictest orthodoxy. What 
more forcible statement of the distressing con- 
dition of an impenitent soul in the future life 
can be given than the following from the pen 
of Dr. Channing? 

"It is plainly implied in Scripture, that we 
shall suffer much more from sin, evil tempers, 
irreligion, in the future w^orld than we suffer 
here. This is one main distinction between 
the two states. In the present world, sin does 



no THE INTERMEDIATE WORLD. 

indeed bring with it many pains, but not full 

or exact retribution After death, 

character will produce its full effect 

The circumstances which in this life prevent 
vice, sin, wrong-doing, from inflicting pain, 
will not operate hereafter. There the evil 
mind will be exposed to its own terrible 
agency, and nothing, nothing will interfere 
between the transgressor and his own awak- 
ened conscience In the present life, 

we have the means of escaping, amusing, and 
forgetting ourselves Sleep is a func- 
tion of our present animal frame ; but let not 
the transgressor anticipate this boon in the 
world of retribution before him. It may be, 
and he has reason to fear, that, in that state, 
repose will not weigh down his eyelids, that 
conscience will not slumber there, that day and 
night the same reproaching voice is to cry 
wdthin, that unrepented sin is to fasten its 
unrelaxing grasp on the ever-wakeful soul. . . 
... It seems to me probable, that, in the 
future, the whole creation will, through sin, be 
turned into a source of suffering, and will 



A WORLD OF FIXEDNESS. Ill 

perpetually throw back the evil mind on its 

own transgressions One and only 

one evil can be carried from this world to the 
next, and that is the evil within us, moral evil, 
guilt, crime, ungoverned passion. The de- 
praved mind, the memor}^ of a wasted or ill- 
spent life, the character which has grown up 
under neglect of God's voice in his word and 
in the soul : this, this will go with us to stamp 
itself on our future frames, to darken our 
future being, to separate us like an impassable 
gulf from our Creator and from pure and happy 
beings, to be as a consuming fire and an 
undying worm." 

Those who imagine that the more thoughtful 
Unitarians put but light estimates upon the 
consequences entailed upon the future existence 
by sin unrepented of in the present life, should 
also weigh carefully the following words of 
Dr. E. S. Gannett: 

"And if you are not saved, O ! consider you 
must be lost ! iVsk ye the meaning of that 
word? Who can tell its fearful import? Self- 
reproach, exclusion from the happiness of 



112 THE INTERMEDIATE WORLD. 

heaven, removal from the favor of God ; to 
live but to suffer ; to be surrounded by proofs 
of the Divine Majesty, only to be tormented 
by the sight ; to be conscious of power, affec- 
tions, and wants, craving and pining and rav- 
ing for satisfaction ; and to feel one's self at 
variance with all that is true and good and 
beautiful in the universe — this it is, in part, 
. to be lost through one's own folly. What more 
it is, eternity will disclose." 

Likewise, no less suggestive and impressive 
are the conclusions of Dr. Dewey. 

"If we should suppose a wicked man to live 
always on earth, and to proceed in his career 
of iniquity, adding sin to sin, arming conscience 
with new terrors, gathering and enhancing all 
horrible diseases and distempers, and increas- 
ing and accumulating the load of infamy and 
woe, this might give us some faint idea to 
which sin may go in another world." 

"The great evil attending the common state- 
ments of this doctrine, I shall now venture to 
say, is not, that they are too alarming. Men 
are not enough alarmed at the dangers of a sin- 



A WORLD OF FIXEDNESS. II3 

ful course. No men are ; no men, though they 
sit under the most terrifying dispensation of 
preaching that ever was devised. But the evil 
is, that the alarm is addressed too much to the 
imagination, and too little to the reason and 
conscience. Neither Whitefield, nor Baxter, 
nor Edwards, — though the horror produced 
by his celebrated sermon ^ on the justice of God 
in the damnation of sinners,' is a matter of 
tradition in New England to this very day, — 
yet no one of them ever preached too much 
terror, though they may have preached it too 
exclusively ; but the evil was that they preached 
terror, I repeat, too much to the imagination, 
and too litde to the reason and conscience. Of 
mere fright there may be too much ; but of 
real, rational fear there never can be too 
much. Sin, vice, a corrupt mind, a guilty 
life, and the woes naturally flowing from these, 
can never be too much dreaded." 

"Beware what thou layest up for the future ; 

bew^are what thou layest up in the archives of 

eternity. . . . Thou, in fine, who art living 

a negligent and irreligious life, beware ! be- 

8 



114 THE INTERMEDIATE WORLD. 

ware how thou livest ; for bound up with that 
life are elements of God's creating, which shall 
never spend their force ; which shall be un- 
folding and unfolding with the ages of eternity. 
Beware ! I say once more, and be not deceived. 
Be not deceived, God is not mocked ; God 
who has framed thy nature thus to answer 
to the future, is not mocked; his law can 
never be abrogated ; his justice can never be 
eluded; beware, then, be forewarned; since, 
forever and forever, it will be true, that 
whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also 
reap."* 

Such are the earnest, but friendly, warnings 
of these speculative anti-evangelicals ; can or- 
thodox clergymen well be silent? 

In view, therefore, of unquestioned Bible 
statements, and in view of these solemn appre- 
hensions of a thoughtful and philosophic liber- 
alism, there ought to be no doubt in any mind 
as to the seemingly certain and distressing 

* For other similar statements, the reader is referred to 
Dr. Dorchester's excellent book entitled, *' Concessions of 
Liberalists to Orthodoxy." 



A WORLD OF FIXEDNESS. II5 

condition of those souls which shall be con- 
signed at death to Gehenna-Hades. 

We are aware that the feeling is quite prev- 
alent, though not clearly defined, and without 
anything like a satisfactory foundation, that 
through the agency of future penitence a soul 
may pass at any time from imprisonment and 
suffering to repose and joy in the Intermediate 
World, as also, still later, from the punishments 
of Gehenna Proper to the rewards of the Heaven 
of heavens. 

Whether it would be a wise form of admin- 
istration that makes release from imprisonment 
a matter of simple regret, it must be confessed 
is extremely questionable. Easy conditions 
and penalties find, in our present life, a crimi- 
nal oscillating between prison and freedom. 
A soul released easily from Gehenna-Hades, 
likewise might now and then risk a crime m 
Paradise-Hades ; for, if recommitment to prison 
should follow, a tear would secure full restora- 
tion. But such a state of government would 
be earth over again, which every analogy in 
the universe afiirms is not to be. 



Il6 THE INTERMEDIATE WORLD. 

Aside from this consideration, must it not 
also be confessed that the admitted condition 
and suffering of the unrighteous dead leave 
but the faintest, if indeed any, hope of a sub- 
sequent penitence, such, at least, as will result 
in reform and redemption? The beneficial 
influences, in any respect, of imprisonment or 
suffering, in case of the unrighteous, is ex- 
tremely doubtful. 

"The most distinguished of American phi- 
lanthropists," says Dr. Hedge, in the Christian 
Examiner, "with large experience with human 
nature and reformatory discipline, expressed to 
us, in a recent conversation, the conviction 
that some natures are beyond the reach of 
moral influence — proof against all discipline 
— moral incurables. What reason to expect a 
moral revolution in such characters here- 
after? If any derived from the nature of the 
human soul, let psychology declare it." 

" Our observation does not detect this medi- 
cinal quality in the penal sufferings of the 
present life. There is virtue in sorrow to ed- 
ucate and perfect the good, but none that we 



A WORLD OF FIXEDNESS. II7 

can see to reclaim the wicked. It does not 
appear that punishment in this world has 
always the effect, or has in the majority of 
cases the effect, to reform the sinner ; contra- 
riwise, it is notorious that men continue to sin 
and suffer to the day of their death. What 
authority have we for supposing that this pro- 
cess is arrested hereafter, or for not supposing 
that the sinner will go on sinning and suffering 
everlastingly, or till evil becomes so predomi- 
nant in the soul as utterly to quench its moral 
life, and conscious suffering ends in everlast- 
ing death? Who shall say that sin, once es- 
tablished, may not grow to be supreme and 
ineradicable, — that the habit of transgression 
contracted in this world and confirmed by every 
fresh transgression, may not become a neces- 
sity of nature, strong as fate and deep as 
life? "19 

If, therefore, we ask for proof or evidence 
that the normal effect of future imprisonment 
and suffering will be to make, in a solitary 
instance, a good man out of a bad one, no one 
replies. The evidence is really and over- 



Il8 THE INTERMEDIATE WORLD. 

whelmingly the other way. The case is not 
known where a criminal has been converted 
and purified merely by legal incarceration. 
Criminals have been reformed, but it has been 
through the ministry of Christianity, not through 
bolts and cells, whether in associated or soli- 
tary confinement. Criminals, after remaining 
in prison at hard labor for twenty years, have 
come out none the less corrupt and vicious, in 
fact, none the less criminals, than when the 
prison-doors first excluded them from society. 
The most cruel and fiendish murders ever per- 
petrated have been by convicts while still in 
prison. It is correctly stated that imprison- 
ment and suffering '' not only fail greatly to 
purify the soul from sin, but often, on the other 
hand, aggravate and intensify its selfish and 
malignant passions, making of it almost a very 
fiend." 

" The infliction of penalty has no tendency 
to reform the guilty," is one of Edmund Burke's 
wise observations. Criminals too are hard- 
ened under the ways and restrictions of Provi- 
dence on earth ; what the evidence, therefore, 



A WORLD OF FIXEDNESS. II9 

that they will be otherwise than thus hardened 
hereafter? Providence will not be at variance 
with itself simply because one world is ex- 
changed for another. Startlingly suggestive 
in this connection are the words of the Reve- 
lator : 

'^And I heard another out of the altar say, 
Even so, Lord God Almighty, true and right- 
eous are thy judgments. And the fourth 
angel poured out his vial upon the sun ; and 
power was given unto him to scorch men with 
fire. And men were scorched with great heat, 
and blasphemed the name of God, which hath 
power over these plagues ; and they repented 
not to give him glory. And the fifth angel 
poured out his vial upon the seat of the beast ; 
and his kingdom was full of darkness ; and 
they gnawed their tongues for pain, and blas- 
phemed the God of heaven because of their 
pains and their sores, and repented not of their 
deeds."* 

If, therefore, improvement under punish- 
ment, suffering, or imprisonment is so ex- 

* Rev. xvi. 7-1 1. Compare Amos iv. 6-1 1. 



I20 THE INTERMEDIATE WORLD. 

tremely doubtful, what are the reasonable 
probabilities for presuming that penitence, 
which is the preliminary step in all reforms, 
will issue from the confinement and chains of 
Gehenna-Hades? 

Nay, the more profound our reflections, the 
more inevitably are we borne on to the still 
sadder conclusion, that true penitence is not 
only improbable, but, from the nature of things, 
is also most likely impossible, in case of unright- 
eous souls which are imprisoned with those like 
themselves, suffering the normal consequences 
of guilt in the Intermediate World. 

Of contrition under suffering everybody is 
shy. It arouses suspicions, like a death-bed 
repentance, that all is not right. The sick 
man says, ^^Yes," but recovering, defies God 
all the same ; it is fright, which is often mis- 
taken for penitence. Virtuous conduct founded 
merely on fear or expediency is rightly said to 
be nothing but " vice in a fit of dejection, or in 
preparation for other crimes." 

"The thing repentance," says the author of 
Ecce Homo^ " all would agree is good, but then 



A WORLD OF FIXEDNESS. 121 

it is rare ; for the name repentance people gen- 
erally have slight respect, because it seldom 
represents the thing." 

Amid the confusion, restlessness, and curses 
of the doomed ; amid thoughts of what is lost 
and of what might have been enjoyed ; under 
the anguish of remorse and the lashings of 
conscience ; while crushed with the horrors 
of that subjective wreck and doom so vividly 
portrayed by such men as Drs. Dewey, Hedge, 
and Gannett, are to be sought, last of all, those 
conditions under which an observing and 
thoughtful man would naturally look for such 
penitence as leads to reform or release. ^^ Un- 
der circumstances and conditions like these, 
the only penitence w^hich can be imagined 
w^ould be so associated wdth thoughts of escape, 
or w^ould be so almost exclusively evoked by 
terror, as to render it well-nigh, if not w^holly, 
selfish. But such penitence as this, unless 
supplemented b}' other motives, emotions, and 
resolves, simply makes the victim w^orse instead 
of better. The distinction clearly drawn by 
the apostle should never be overlooked when 



122 THE INTERMEDIATE WORLD. 

discussing this subject : ^^ Godly sorrow work- 
eth repentance to salvation not to be repented 
of: but the sorrow of the world worketh 
death." * 

But more than this : selfish penitence, with- 
out a virtuous supplement, — the only kind we 
have supposed possible to those prisoners of 
Gehenna-Hades, — is such also as will not 
move the universe to pity. We find, for in- 
stance, a man in tears ; instantly our steps are 
arrested ; we sympathetically inquire as to his 
sorrow ; — but when we discover that his only 
anguish is that his crimes have been detected, 
and are to be punished ; that his heart is just 
as hard as before his arrest ; and that, but for 
detection, he is ripe for other high-handed acts 
of violence ; that he thinks and cares nothing 
for the human or divine laws violated, or for 
sorroA'vs and woes he has carried to other 
hearts ; that he simply weeps, or wails and 
gnashes his teeth, because he has been found 
out, — then to us he becomes another man. 

The sympathetic tenderness of those who, 

* 2 Cor. vii. lo. Compare Heb. vi. 6j xii. 17. 



A WORLD OF FIXEDNESS. I23 

Without understanding the case, were, but a 
moment before, moved to tears by his groans, 
ceases ; weep for such a man, under such circum- 
stances, one cannot. And then that criminal, 
seeing that all tears are withheld, is enraged 
and desperate ; his groans are turned to curses ; 
he grinds his teeth with augmented wrath, and 
thus plunges into depths lower down. The 
good is turned into evil, and becomes a savor 
of death unto death. 

To argue, as a few are inclined to, that new 
and essentially different motives, emotions, and 
resolves, finding their way into Gehenna-Ha- 
des, will change all ordinary relations and 
normal tendencies, is, to a thoughtful mind, to 
build an argument whose foundations rest only 
on quicksand or in mid-air. 

" In this world, where stands the cross of 
Christ, men turn away from the offers of mercy, 
and with strange and mysterious desperation 
rush on in their course of self-inflicted evils, 
and at length lie down and die in darkness 
and horror : '' what are the antecedent proba- 
bilities or evidences that they will be so cir- 



124 THE INTERMEDIATE WORLD. 

cumstanced as not to do precisely the same 
hereafter? 

If all the ample provisions for redemption 
fail of saving the wicked in this world, what 
reason have we for supposing that Gehenna- 
Hades or Gehenna Proper will be such as can 
save them hereafter? Is there any profound 
reasoning, or established facts, or occasional 
phenomena, to support the hypothesis that 
God's system of salvation in our present world 
is less effective than will be his system of im- 
prisonment in the Intermediate World? Hu- 
man instincts and reason demand that the 
better and most effective methods of salvation 
should be tried here instead of waiting until 
hereafter. In moral government, can the 
Deity always wait until afterwards 1 All his 
works are perfect of their kind. The scheme 
of human redemption must be perfect of its 
kind. If, then, what has been done on earth 
fails, is it not presumptuous to look for some- 
thing hereafter still more startling and sensa- 
tional? If the Holy Ghost cannot now win 
the sinner to the truth, are there rational 



A WORLD OF FIXEDNESS. I25 

grounds upon -which to rest the supposition 
that He will do so hereafter, and somewhere 
else? 

The moment it is granted that the results 
of sin and guilt extend into the future life, 
lasting if but for a single day, and affecting in 
any way distressingly the transgressor, espe- 
cially if they are such as to make it necessary 
for him to be committed to a place by himself, 
thereby excluding him from the society of the 
holy, — an admission granted by all modern 
Universalists and Unitarians, — that moment 
the expectation of anything like restoration 
becomes dark as midnight. 

Gehenna-Hades, that gloomy place in which 
the most hardened criminals the world has 
known are cast, that abode of the wretched 
and demon-like, God's great prison-house, 
" without chapel or chaplain," is the last spot 
in the universe in which to reform men. That 
place and the revival of virtue seem like utterly 
and eternally incompatible elements — do they 
not? In fine, all reasoning based upon anal- 
ogy and experience strikes the death-knell of 



126 THE INTERMEDIATE WORLD. 

every hope as to a second probation in the Inter- 
mediate World, which shall be better for men 
than has been the first probation in the world 
we now inhabit. The most that a speculative 
liberalism ventures, while facing these solemni- 
ties, is to hoj^e that these apparent fatalities will 
somehow ultimately issue into either restora- 
tion or annihilation.^^ Orthodoxy, on the other 
hand, is compelled to fear and believe^ from 
evidence which seems to it to be unanswerable 
and conclusive, that throughout the intermedi- 
ate period, and on through eternity, those dis- 
tressing conditions will changelessly continue, 
or become worse and worse. Liberalism, in 
the tenderness of its heart, while taking its 
position, anchors to a speculation ; 22 Ortho- 
doxy, in its fealty to an earnest faith, while 
taking its position, anchors to the words of 
Christ. Which is the safer anchorage? We 
leave a thoughtful world to judge. 

• 
But, though human nature and reason afford 
no ground for the doctrine of the reform of the 
soul while in Gehenna-Hades, or of release 



A WORLD OF FIXEDNESS. I27 

from Its imprisonments, according to an almost 
universal admission, still, it is insisted that the 
God-nature is such as either will or must make 
hereafter the needed universal redemptive pro- 
visions. 

Infinite love and divine omnipotence have 
each been required to contribute to this plea 
that God will^ or must reform and save every 
member of the human family, bringing all, at 
last, in triumph to Heaven, if not from the In- 
termediate World, then, at some later period, 
from the nether Gehenna. 

" God's goodness w^ill not allow one of his 
little ones to perish," is a popular form of rep- 
resentation. Mr. Alger, in his " History of 
the Doctrine of the Future Life," embodies the 
common Liberal position in the following 
vision : 

"God once sat on his inconceivable throne, 
and far around him, rank after rank, angels 
and archangels, seraphim and cherubim, 
resting on their silver wings and lifting their 
dazzling brows, rose and swelled, with the 
splendor of an illimitable sea of immortal 



128 THE INTERMEDIATE WORLD. 

beings, gleaming and fluctuating to the remot- 
est borders of the universe. The anthem of 
their praise shook the pillars of the creation, 
and filled the vault of heaven with a pulsing 
flood of harmony. When, as they closed their 
hymn, stole up, faint-heard, as from some dis- 
tant region of all space, in dim accents humbly 
rising, a responsive 'Amen,' God asked 
Gabriel, 'Whence comes that amen?' The 
hierarchic peer replied, 'It rises from the 
damned in hell.' God took, from where it 
hung above his seat, the key that unlocks the 
forty thousand doors of hell, and, giving it to 
Gabriel, bade him go release them. On wings 
of light sped the enraptured messenger, res- 
cued the millions of the lost, and, just as they 
were, covered all over with the traces of their 
sin, filth, and woe, brought them straight up 
into the midst of heaven. Instantly they were 
transformed, clothed in robes of glory, and 
placed next to the throne ; and henceforth, for 
evermore, the dearest strain to God's ear, of 
all the celestial music, was that borne by the 
choir his grace had ransomed from hell. And, 



A WORLD OF FIXEDNESS. 1 29 

because there is no envy or other selfishness in 
heaven, this promotion sent but new thrills of 
delight and gratitude through the heights and 
depths of angelic life." 

Such are the representations which fascinate, 
nay, almost convince, any one in whom sentiment 
much predominates, that all is to end well. 
But the spell over the believer is quickly broken 
by a voice which sounds more like God's than 
any other which ever spoke, saying, "Whoso- 
ever speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall 
not be forgiven him, neither in this world, 
neither in the world to come." * 

" But he that shall blaspheme against the 
Holy Ghost hath never forgiveness, but is in 
danger of eternal damnation."! 

The logical and legal obligations resting 
upon God to restore to everlasting bliss the 
unrighteous, especially in view of the divine 
omnipotence, are frequently urged as unan- 
swerable arguments by modern rationalistic 
writers.^^ With a seeming design of extolling 

* Matt. xii. 32. t Mark iii. 29. Comp. Heb. vi. 4-6, 21. 

9 



130 THE INTERMEDIATE WORLD. 

the majesty of God, it is insisted by them that 
unless all God's creatures sooner or later will- 
ingly and cheerfully submit to his authority, 
then he is not a sovereign ruler ; and that as 
long as an impenitent soul remains in Gehenna- 
Hades or in Gehenna Proper, thus long there 
is a spot in this universe where God's authority 
is not supreme. 

It is difficult to understand how any person 
having an adequate idea of sovereignty and 
government can thus reason. Does govern- 
ment consist merely in securing willing obedi- 
ence? Is society or a state less a government 
though obedience is coerced? Does the sov- 
ereignty of the state depend solely upon the 
self-sacrificing patriotism of every citizen? 
Will its sovereignty be any less acknowledged 
when the law and administration are such that 
every traitor is in chains, or is obliged to flee 
to other countries, or to the fastnesses of the 
mountains? Thus likewise the universe of 
intelligence, no one can doubt, will recognize 
the majesty of the divine government, when 
"the kings of the earth, and the great men, 



A WORLD OF FIXEDNESS. I3T 

and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the 
mighty men, and every bondman, and every free 
man, shall hide themselves in the dens and in 
the rocks of the mountains ; and shall say to the 
mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us 
from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, 
and from the vv^rath of the Lamb : for the great 
day of his wrath is come ; and who shall be 
able to stand ? " * Nor will the sovereignty of 
God be questioned by any one when "the 
devil that deceived them is cast into the lake 
of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the 
false prophet are, and shall be tormented day 
and night forever and ever." f 

Rev. M. J. Savage may be cited as giving 
a slightly different, and somewhat popular, 
though by no means new, expression to this 
same sentiment. " God wills man's perfection. 
If he wills man's perfection, why then man 
will be perfect, or God cannot have his own 
way. Either God can or he cannot. If he 
desires to save men and cannot, he is not God. 

* Rev. vi. 15-17. t Rev. XX. 10. Compare verse 15. 



132 THE INTERMEDIATE WORLD. 

If he does not desire to save them while he 
can, he is not God." 

The Deity thus seems to have been cornered 
by this astute divine. Mr. Savage would have 
been still shrewder, however, had he not only 
cornered, but killed the Deity. This could 
have been just as easily and quietly done. 
The old Epicureans might have disclosed to 
this divine the art of murdering the King of 
kings, and thus have ended all our troubles. 
As represented by Lactantius, the following 
w^as their reasoning : " Either God wills to re- 
move evil, and cannot; or he can, and will 
not; or he cannot, and will not; or he can, 
and will. If he wills, and cannot, that is 
weakness. If he can, and will not, that is 
malignity. If he will not, and cannot, that 
is a defect both of power and goodness. But 
if he can and will ; then w^hy is evil ? " It 
follows of course that there is no God. 

To these various positions Dr. Dewey makes 
an admirable reply. Speaking of a remark 
of Samuel Rogers, that three of the acutest 
men he had ever met — James Mackintosh, 



A WORLD OF FIXEDNESS. I33 

Malthus, and Bobus Smith — had agreed that 
the attributes of the Deity must be in some 
way limited, else there would be no sin and 
misery, Dr. Dewey says : 

'^This language very much surprises me. 
For the truth is, that power has nothing to do 
with the case. There are such things as in- 
herent, intrinsic, natural impossibilities. It is 
impossible, for instance, that matter should 
exist without occupying space ; and it is not 
so proper to say that God cannot make it so, 
as that the thing cannot be. . . • 

"Was it possible to frame a nature, moral, 
finite, and free, and to exclude from it all lia- 
bility to error, to sin? I answer that by the 
very terms of the statement it was just as im- 
possible as to make two mountains without a 
valley ; or to make the angles of a triangle to 
be equal to three or four right angles. The 
very statement of the case excludes the pos- 
sibility." 

It must be apparent, therefore, that there is 
not a little rash imprudence manifested when a 
short-sighted mortal, who knows but remotely 



134 ^^^ INTERMEDIATE WORLD. 

what are the possibilities and impossibilities of 
the hfe after death, sets himself about the 
making of a god to suit his own fancy, and 
then reports what the infinite Jehovah will and 
will not, or must and must not, do. That was 
a wise caution suggested by a prominent Uni- 
tarian, which all free-thinkers should weigh. 

" But on the other hand, we should remem- 
ber that our knowledge of the divine attributes, 
and of the real claims of justice and mercy, is 
very limited. God seeth not as man seeth, for 
he sees the whole and man only a part. It 
may therefore appear that many things which 
seem to us inconsistent with God's love, are in 
fact its most perfect exercise." * 

This tendency of the human mind to manu- 
facture gods to suit itself is very noticeable, 
history through. f We of civilized lands freely 
express our sympathy for the idolater who 
adores his fetich ; but may not we ourselves 
be equally in danger ? There are lords many 

* Dr. W. G. Eliot. 

t Rom. i. 21, 25. Compare the idolatry of the early 
Jews. 



A WORLD OF FIXEDNESS. I35 

and gods many, if we are disposed to make 
them. "God is thus, and must therefore do 
thus," is the reiterated announcement in many 
quarters at the present time. Strictly, the 
statement, even upon rationalistic grounds, 
can scarcely be stronger than this : " If God 
is thus, he must do thus ; he may be other- 
wise." This conclusion would be a wholesome 
modifier, or corrector, of our petty conceits. 
The truth is, that he who makes his own god, 
whether a graven image or a charming ideal 
invention, and worships it, is an idolater. 

Jehovah has placed at the command of mor- 
tals four volumes from which they may read 
his character — the Physical Universe, the 
World of Thought, including the mental and 
moral faculties, the History of Providence, 
and the Written Word, including the Word 
Incarnate. This last volume is generally 
regarded the fullest and clearest in its revela- 
tions of that divine Being we call God. No 
one can carefully read it without the feeling 
that it unquestionably represents the divine 
character as abounding with love, and with 



136 THE INTERMEDIATE WORLD. 

tender regard for all his creatures ; and yet, 
though seemingly contradictory, it represents 
God as such also, as can and will allow the 
misfortunes and sufferings of the Intermediate 
World to last under his eye and ordering as 
long as need be, even until the day of Judg- 
ment, and the penalties and punishments of 
the nether Gehenna likewise to last as long as 
need be, even time without end. 

Is it thought by any one that the other vol- 
umes contradict these representations of the 
Written Word? Certainly the book of the 
Physical Universe harmonizes therewith. It 
has a thousand chapters whose captions are, 
"God is love," and will bless all such as in 
due time comply with his ordained conditions 
of salvation. The tintinp^s of the mornincr ; 
the shadings of the evening ; the loveliness of 
the velveted earth by day ; the light-throbs of 
the blue vault by night, — all bespeak the su- 
preme love of God in words whose force and 
meaning can never be questioned. 

But this same volume of the Physical Uni- 
verse has a thousand other chapters whose 



A WORLD OF FIXEDNESS. I37 

captions are, "God is a consuming fire," and 
will deny redemption, after a thne^ to anything 
and everything not complying with his ordained 
conditions. The fittest comply, and survive; 
the unfit mutineer against Nature's rulings, 
and in consequence the great sexton, passing 
through the universe, is peremptorily ordered 
to ^'shovel them in." This is one of the most 
pronounced deductions of modern physical 
science. 

Truly "God is love," but is not thus dis^ 
qualified. "It is necessary for God to be 
strong as well as good, lest the devil shall 
shortly get the upper hand." The tempest 
marks out its path, and turns not, though the 
ship and its half thousand lives are sent to 
the bottom ; the shaft of lightning veers not 
one inch though it could save the wreck of the 
household; the ozone that could relieve and 
bless the epidemic-smitten city, heedlessly 
passes by on the other side. 

Or is any one ignorant of the remorselessness 
of the Physical Universe when its laws are 
broken or infringed? x\s Strauss represents, 



138 THE INTERMEDIATE WORLD. 



if we come in contact with one of the wheels 
of her machinery we are seized and torn to 
pieces ; if we chance to step in her way, down 
falls some ponderous hammer and grinds us 
to atoms. Men read of wrecks, disasters, pes- 
tilences, and starvations, until they wonder if 
there is a God ; or if there is, they wonder 
what sort of a being he can be who created 
and still rules such a physical universe. 

The latest atheistic creed growing out of 
what the eye is compelled daily to see and the 
ear to hear, is stated thus : 

"Nature, so far as we can discern, without 
passion and without intention, forms, trans- 
forms, and retransforms forever. She neither 
weeps nor rejoices. She produces man with- 
out purpose, and obliterates him without re- 
gret. She knows no distinction between the 
beneficial and the hurtful. Poison and nutri- 
tion, pain and joy, life and death, smiles and 
tears, are alike to her. She is neither merciful 
nor cruel. She cannot be flattered by worship 
nor melted by tears. She does not know even 
the attitude of prayer. She appreciates no 



A WORLD OF FIXEDNESS. I39 

difference between poison in the fangs of 
snakes and mercy in the hearts of men." 

Thus diverse and seemingly contradictory 
are the readings of the book of Phj^sical Na- 
ture. Would not men do wisely to base their 
conclusions upon these facts rather than upon 
speculation, and in their attitude toward this 
Being govern themselves accordingly? 

Appealing to the next volume, the one con- 
taining revelations of the World of Thought, 
there can likewise be read in a multitude of 
passages the announcement, "God is love." 
Thought, even in its lower form, — that of 
instinct, — as witnessed in the provisions for 
the preservation and joy of animal life, and as 
heard in the twitter and song of birds ; also 
thought in its higher forms, as expressed in 
the prattle and laughter of children ; likewise 
in its highest form known to man, as felt in 
the delights of a pure imagination, in the trea- 
sures of holy memories, in the peace born of 
obedience, in the triumphs coming from con- 
quest over evil, in the transports of faith, based 
upon the mighty assurance that God "is a 



140 THE INTERMEDIATE WORLD. 

rewarder of them that diligently seek him ; " 
in a word, every obedient and orderly mental 
and soul process is a psalm of praise, declar- 
ing the supreme beneficence and love of the 
Infinite. 

But this w^onderful volume, in an equally 
larger number of its chapters, discloses another 
fact, true, but fearful. When, for instance, dis- 
obedience has enslaved a man's thinking ; 
when all resolute purposes for reform have 
abandoned him ; when curses take the place 
of prayers ; when the lurid flashes of a pitiless 
conscience is the only light to walk by, lighting 
but one path through the pitch darkness, — that 
one which leads to a deeper deep, — then we 
are forced to read from the con3titution and 
operations of a God-made mind and soul, that 
its Maker is, or may be, a "consuming fire," 
and therefore may be such as to leave the 
thinking part of man in chains forever and 
ever, if he deems it best. 

The History of Providence, too, reports in a 
thousand ways that "God is love," working 
ever in the interest of righteousness, and for- 



A WORLD OF FIXEDNESS. I4I 

giving with the most magnanimous grace and 
pity the prodigal who returns before the offers 
of mercy are withheld. 

But, on the other hand, we have not long to 
look here or there, before finding in the ways 
of Providence much darkness and destruction. 
At one angle of view, the History of Provi- 
dence displays the gleams and glories of a 
supreme love; at another angle of view, there 
is disclosed something which looks like a con- 
tinuous trail of Satanic havoc. "A singular 
notion of universal good — composed of the 
stone, of the gout, of all crimes, of all suffer- 
ings, of death, and daily damnation," exclaimed 
Voltaire. 

No w^onder that Dr. Edw^ard Beecher, when 
preparing his work entitled " Conflict of Ages," 
and while contemplating the evils of life and 
providence, paused, sprang to his feet, and 
paced his floor, confronted with the terrible 
question, What if, after all, God is not good? 

'' Orthodoxy makes God infinitely more ma- 
lignant and cruel than are the most malignant 
and cruel men." * 

* Gerritt Smith. 



142 THE INTERMEDIATE WORLD. 

Ah! is it orthodoxy that does this? If, in- 
deed, one should read not another volume save 
these three — Matter, Thought, and Provi- 
dence, — startling must be his conclusions re- 
specting the Being with whom mortals have 
to do. The constant and universal attitude 
towards a Ruler whose love is such as can 
save, and as easily destroy^ may, therefore, 
well be one of adoration and fear. 

First and last, it has many times been said, 
as we are aware, that an earthly father would 
not deal with his children as the Bible repre- 
sents God as dealing with his children. True ; 
but does that help the matter or relieve the 
difficulty? "Thou knewest that I was an 
austere man, taking up that I laid not down, 
and reaping that I did not sow : wherefore then 
gavest not thou my money into the bank, that 
at my coming I might have required mine own 
with usury?"* is the reply heard, not only in 
the Bible but equally elsewhere. ^' Any father," 
says Mrs. Stowe, ^^who should make such use 
of power over his children as the Deity does 

* Luke xix. 22, 23. 



A WORLD OF FIXEDNESS. I43 

With regard to us, would be looked upon as a 
monster by our very imperfect moral sense ; 
yet I cannot say that the facts are not so."^^ 

The Bible is condemned more often than 
otherwise because it represents God as one to 
be feared ; but do these other volumes report 
differently? Is it the old Jewish, or the new 
Christian, dispensation merely which reiterates 
the saying, "Be not afraid of them that kill 
the body, and after that have no more that 
they can do. But I will forewarn you whom 
ye shall fear : fear him, which after he hath 
killed hath power to cast into hell ; yea, I say 
unto you, fear him "? * 

We appeal, in the following inquiries, to any 
one at all acquainted with these three books re- 
ferred to : Do they make for any conclusions 
other than those deduced from the Written 
Word? In common do they not announce that 
" It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the 
living God"?f Do not the pages of Matter, 
Thought, and Providence enforce the words of 
the Master : " But I will forewarn you whom ye 

* Luke xii. 4, 5. t Heb. x. 31. 



144 '^^'^ INTERMEDIATE WORLD. 

shall fear : fear him, which after he hath 
killed hath power to cast into hell ; yea, I 
say unto you, fear him"?* Do they not as 
frequently repeat as does the Written Word, 
that " God is a consuming fire " ? f 

Is it in the Inspired Volume, and nowhere 
else, while reading the commendation, " Well, 
thou good servant, have thou authority over 
ten cities," that we are startled by the con- 
demnation, "But those mine enemies, which 
would not that I should reign over them, bring 
hither, and slay them before me"? J 

Is it the Written Word alone which reports 
the entering in of the wise to the marriage 
supper, and the fatal and final exclusion of 
the unwise? § Do we not read elsewhere, as 
well as in the Scriptures, that while the obe- 
dient are allow^ed to enter the ark, God de- 
scends, shuts the door, and thus shuts out the 
rest of the world, and then drowns it? || Is it 
the Bible alone which declares that a man 

* Luke xii. 5. t Heb. xii. 29. 

X Luke xix. 27. § Matt. xxv. 1-13. 

11 Gen. vii. 16. 



A WORLD OF FIXEDNESS. I45 

'^for one morsel of meat" may sell "his birth- 
right," and ever afterwards be rejected like 
Esau? "for he found no place of repentance, 
though he sought it carefully with tears." * 

The evidence in point of fact is well-nigh 
limitless that the God of Matter, of Thought, 
and of Providence, beyond a certain point, 
recognizes no force in tears, and breaks not a 
fetter, nay, nor allows one to be broken, when 
the soul has bound itself with one too many 
turns of the chain. Therefore, to take a single 
additional step in the path of transgression, is 
a venture whose consequences may be too vast 
and appalling for human estimate. 

An effort, however, is sometimes made to 
relieve the difficulties involved in all the rig- 
orous reports and facts of the universe, by 
reasoning that these rude shocks which Nature 
gives her children are really evidences of the 
love of God, who, for wise and good reasons, 
has thus arranged Nature, Mind, and Provi- 
dence. 

The philosophers represent that existing 

* Heb. xii. 16, 17. 
10 



146 THE INTERMEDIATE WORLD. 

evils are such only in appearance. Hence the 
tornado becomes a loving necessity. A mass 
of heated air ascends along a line of heated 
water. Two currents dash in, right and left, 
to fill the space ; they clash ; a tornado sweeps 
along the line ; three thousand perish, but 
thirty thousand or more are saved ; this is the 
only way, we are told, of restoring the equi- 
librium and of preventing a " stagnant atmos- 
phere" and a "rotting sea." 

So of volcanoes : did they not occur in cer- 
tain places, and did not the earthquake result 
occasionally from the contracting of the earth's 
crust, physical evils would accumulate, and 
their accumulation would anon annihilate all 
existence. A few in given localities perish, 
that the whole world may for a time be con- 
tinued. 

Our earth, too, with its oceans, its conti- 
nents, its forests, and all its charming habi- 
tations, as it is said, has come up to its present 
glory through great tribulations ; fiery billows, 
terrific tornadoes, and mighty earthquakes, 
have made it what it is. But still the question 



A WORLD OF FIXEDNESS. I47 

recurs. Why could it not have been otherwise 
made? Would it not have been as well to have 
so arranged affairs as to save people in some 
other way than by sacrifice, and to evolve 
orderly worlds without these attending con- 
vulsions and confusions ? Our preference would 
most certainly dictate other arrangements ; but 
perhaps we are not wise. 

Now, what no one can fail of admitting is 
this, that the antecedent probabilities are just 
as great that God will provide something 
which answers to tornadoes and earthquakes, 
with which to devastate some parts of the In- 
termediate World, as that he would make such 
provisions for the present world. For the 
safety of Paradise-Hades may, for aught we 
know, require the existence of Gehenna-Hades, 
with its wildness and dreariness, upon the same 
principles precisely that the safety of the pres- 
ent earth, as a whole, requires a volcano in 
Italy, or a tornado in the West Indies. The 
sight and knowledge of Gehenna-Hades may 
be one of the mighty motive-securities which 
are to keep Paradise-Hades loyal, safe, and 
pure. 



148 THE INTERMEDIATE WORLD. 

"God ordered punishments In Israel, even 
the greatest that perhaps could be inflicted in 
the world, viz., that transgressors should be 
publicly stoned to death, that others might 
hear, and fear, and hereby be restrained 
from sin. Endless punishment may be as 
necessary in the future state, to answer the 
same end." * 

"And however great an evil the endless 
misery of so many millions is, in itself consid- 
ered, yet, it being not only just, but the neces- 
sary means of such infinite glory and happiness 
to the kingdom of God, in this view, and in 
comparison with this, it sinks into nothing, and 
is wholly absorbed, as to the evil of it, and 
lost in the unspeakable glory and felicity of 
which it is the occasion ; and is, on the whole, 
most desirable, and really becomes, in this 
connection, an important good, essential to 
the perfection of the divine government and 
the highest glory and happiness of God's eter- 
nal kingdom. How inconsiderate and unrea- 
sonable, then, must they be who disbelieve the 

* President Woolsey. 



A WORLD OF FIXEDNESS. I49 

doctrine of endless punishment, and oppose it, 
as inconsistent with infinite goodness !" * 

Beneath the beautiful world we inhabit, much 
debris is covered. May not this be a type of the 
moral universe and a prophecy of the future? 
The visible, reports concerning the invisible, 
and the material concerning the spiritual. 

*' Behind a frowning providence 
He hides a smiling face," 

is also a consolation frequently offered. Why 
may it not likewise be said. Behind a doleful 
Gehenna-Hades, where are imprisoned doomed 
and rebellious souls, He hides a smiling face? 
The same face, without a feature changed, 
to one man wears a frown, to another a smile. 
From the same flower is extracted honey and 
poison ; but what takes the one is a bee, what 
takes the other is a spider. Love must be 
hateful to, and must hate, malevolence, where- 
ever met. The benevolence of God turned to 
malevolence in the eyes of the rebellious, is, 
therefore, amply sufficient to make Gehenna 
what it is to be. 

* Samuel Hopkins. 



150 THE INTERMEDIATE WORLD. 

The truth is, judging from what we know 
of Nature, Thought, and Providence, that the 
rationalist has but the faintest assurance that 
his views of what God will do, or how God will 
seem in the Intermediate World, or still further 
on, are at all correct. To a thoughtful mind 
such personal opinions can be of no account. 
Nature, Experience, and the Written Word 
have no adequate competitors. 

God is love ; let the report be noised abroad 
far and near ; but he is not such a being of 
love as can make it " safe for a mortal to step 
forth over the chasm of death upon a chord 
of hope which his own hands have twisted.'* 
God is love ; let the whole earth hear it ; but 
he is not such a being of love as to make it 
safe for an impenitent sinner to continue in his 
course one moment longer. Of all human 
expectations, the most groundless and delusive, 
so far as can be judged from all known and 
conceivable considerations, are those which 
are dreaming of more favorable conditions for 
reform and salvation, when the soul passes into 
the future life. Reckless, fearfully so, there- 



A WORLD OF FIXEDNESS. I5I 

fore, is the religious teacher who deludes his 
people with false hopes based upon merely 
speculative theories of what God is or will do. 
Faithless, utterly so, likewise, is the religious 
teacher, unless he continuously forewarns this 
world not to run risks as to the future, espe- 
cially where so much is pending, where perils 
are seemingly so inevitable and consequences 
so distressing and unalterable. That of Ge- 
henna-Hades, at the best, must be a ghastly 
and terrific threshold for an impenitent soul to 



It is possible that some of our readers are 
saying, these representations of the Intermedi- 
ate World prove too much, and therefore es- 
tablish nothing. For if souls in Gehenna- 
Hades are irrevocably doomed to remain there 
until the Resurrection, with an absolute cer- 
tainty of being remanded, after the Judgment, 
to a still more hopeless Gehenna, then the 
repose and bliss of Paradise-Hades are possi- 
bl}^ nay, surely, imperilled ; because, if there 
are to be separations, hopeless and endless, 



152 THE INTERMEDIATE WORLD. 

between kindred and loved ones, if there are 
to be these sunderings of hitherto existing 
relationships, of every kind, between the 
righteous and the unrighteous, then, it may 
chance, or, in the nature of things, must 
chance, that those who have been most devot- 
edly attached to one another, as, for instance, 
a brother and sister, or two who are to one 
another more than brother and sister, or a 
husband and wife, or even a mother and son, 
may be separated, the one entering Paradise- 
Hades, the other being consigned to Gehenna- 
Hades ; can the inhabitants of .Paradise-Hades 
submissively bear this final and remediless 
wreck of their households? At first thought, 
the difficulties, we confess, seem well-nigh 
insurmountable ? 

Nevertheless, that there is to be a separation 
of some kind and of certain duration, no ra- 
tionalist who believes in a future existence, for 
a moment doubts ; that it may exist for a mil- 
lion ages no one denies. Dr. Hedge, in the 
Christian Examiner, while speaking of those 
good and evil tendencies which are confirmed 



A WORLD OF FIXEDNESS. I53 

in the natures of the righteous and unrighteous 
during a lifetime, saj^s : ^^ These (tendencies), 
once established, will draw their subjects con- 
trary ways, with progressive divergence, sun- 
dering souls, the good from the bad." But the 
souls thus sundered, "with progressive diver- 
gence," are likely to be those of brothers and 
sisters, of betrothed lovers, of husbands and 
wives, and of mothers and sons. These in- 
volved difficulties belong therefore to Liberal- 
ism as well as to Orthodoxy. But aside from 
this, it must be apparent to all that Paradise- 
Hades should at all events be made safe to 
dwell and rest in ; it could not be thus, how- 
ever, if the unrighteous were free to pass in 
and out at pleasure. Nay, more; if simple 
penitence, such, perhaps, as the murderer feels 
when led to the gallows, is all that is required 
to release a soul from that intermediate and 
doleful imprisonment and instate it in Paradise- 
Hades, then there would be in that world 
neither safety nor repose. With such easy 
conditions and liberties, there would be trans- 
gressions and reforms without number, and 



154 '^^^ INTERMEDIATE WORLD. 

steadfastness would be as uncertain as it now 
is upon the earth. The barriers needed are 
such, therefore, that scaling them will be im- 
possible to those moral agents who have not, 
during their life of probation, established the 
moral character beyond a critical peradven- 
ture. 

In that Intermediate World there will need 
be no shutting of gates day nor night; no 
more guarding of premises ; no more barring 
of doors ; no more bolting of windows : ^^ safety^^ 
is the word spoken everywhere, and the sym- 
bol seen in every direction. If, to make it 
safe, O mother, thy son should be excluded, 
what say you? Can it be otherwise? 

It is in view of the difficulties and perplexi- 
ties incident to this subject, as already noticed, 
that it is often insisted that God, being able 
and willing, will surely convert all rebellious 
sons and dear ones, bringing them at length, 
amid great rejoicings, to a sinless Paradise. 

They are these reckless conjectures as to 
more favorable probations in other worlds 
which are constantly thrust upon us by what 



A WORLD OF FIXEDNESS. I55 

seems an ill-advised rationalism. Thereby the 
suicide is led to think that by his act of violence 
he is to escape from present embarrassments. 
Arrest his step ! For what knows he of the 
entanglements awaiting him ? How knows he 
but conscience with its terrific power may 
confront him in the future life as never before, 
and forever hold him back from God. Men 
know that they have a probation here ; how 
singular that they will do what they know they 
ought not, under a forced belief that they will 
not continue to do hereafter what they know 
they ought not. To foster such delusions is 
not the mission of those who stand before the 
public as religious teachers. To assert, there- 
fore, that God, being able and willing, will 
save those who fail to comply with the require- 
ments of the present probation because they 
have kindred and friends who have complied, 
and are therefore saved, is not the wise nor the 
revealed solution of the difficulties before us. 

To those who think otherwise, a pertinent 
question is this : Why does not God to-day 
restore every w^ayward son and dear one who 



156 THE INTERMEDIATE WORLD. ^ 

is plunging downward, and thus gladden moth- 
ers' and others' hearts without number and 
without measure, as nothing else on earth 
would do? There is no mortal on earth but 
would do this, if in his power. Not bringing 
about such issues in the present world, is it not 
presumption to say that they will be brought 
about elsewhere and hereafter? Questions 
innumerable confront us. How can a mother 
be happy in Paradise-Hades to-day, while 
looking down upon a son on earth reeking in 
corruption, suflFering untold anguish, cursing 
God, and already in so deep a hell as to seek, 
in his madness, a voluntary death ? If a mother 
can be in the Intermediate World, and be at 
rest, seeing these conditions during an earthly 
lifetime, why may she not be at rest if these 
conditions are extended beyond the present 
lifetime? If she cannot be at rest in Paradise- 
Hades, while seeing a debauched and God- 
cursing son on earth, then Paradise-Hades is 
a place where mothers may dwell and not be 
happy. Whichever way one turns, he is thus 
confronted with difficulties. 



A WORLD OF FIXEDNESS. I57 

We are not left, however, entirely in the 
dark ; there are certain facts in practical life 
which throw a few rays of light upon this ap- 
parently most gloomy of all subjects. 

A sister, kind as was ever known, while 
speaking of a brother who had outraged every 
law of respectability and decency, once said 
with calmness, "I have no desire to see his 
face or hear his name again." 

Expostulations, entreaties, forbearances, every 
sort of effort repeated through years of love 
and patience, yet constantl}^ spurned and 
mocked at, had at length wrought this re- 
markable change, so that m the sister's heart 
the brother had become as if he were not. His 
name remained, but that was all. He who had 
been loved earlier in life, lived no longer save 
in pleasant memories of the past. The pang 
of a separation was so far diminished as 
scarcely to be felt. This is true in the present 
world ; may it not be thus at the threshold of 
another life ? 

Says an eminent writer : '' The love of a long- 
suffering wife may, in this world, be so thor- 



158 THE INTERMEDIATE WORLD. 

oughly wearied out by abuse, and her sense 
of the utter inexcusable wrongfulness and vile- 
ness of her husband's course become so clear 
and strong, that w^hen the man whom she once 
dearly loved rushes at last on his earthly 
doom, his fate shall inflict no further wound 
on her heart." 

So too in this case ; the husband is not what 
he once was ; his conduct and character are 
so completely reversed, that, without an addi- 
tional pang, this completely changed man can 
be solemnly yet forever dismissed as he and 
the wife part company at the gates of death. 

Here too is a son who has so far fallen that 
his thoughts are only evil and that continually. 
Such a son, to a wise and holy mother, ma}'' 
come to be almost as if he were not. The 
supposed anguish over the household wreck 
hereafter may, therefore, upon these same 
principles, be softened even more than can 
now be imagined. In view of such like facts, 
the seeming harshness, too, of certain Bible 
representations are very greatly modified. 

" Whosoever shall seek to save his life shall 



A WORLD OF FIXEDNESS. I59 

lose it; and whosoever shall lose his life shall 
preserve it. 

"I tell you, in that night there shall be two 
men in one bed; the one shall be taken, and 
the other shall be left. 

" Two women shall be grinding together ; 
the one shall be taken, and the other left. 

" Two men shall be in the field ; the one 
shall be taken, and the other left." * 

And elsewhere we read : 

^' For I am come to set a man at variance 
against his father, and the daughter against 
her mother, and the daughter-in-law against 
her mother-in-law. 

^^ And a man's foes shall be they of his own 
household. 

" He that loveth father or mother more than 
me is not worthy of me : and he that loveth 
son or daughter more than me is not worthy 

of me."t 

More suggestive than any others, in this con- 
nection, are the words of Jesus to the inquisi- 
tive and sceptical Sadducees. They asked 
him : 

* Luke xvii. 33-36. f Matt. x. 35-37. 



l6o THE INTERMEDIATE WORLD. 

" Therefore, in the resurrection, whose wife 
of them is she? for seven had her to wife. 

"And Jesus answering, said unto them. The 
children of this world marry, and are given in 
marriage : 

" But they which shall be accounted worthy 
to obtain that world, and the resurrection from 
the dead, neither marry, nor are given in mar- 
riage : 

" Neither can they die any more : for they 
are equal unto the angels ; and are the chil- 
dren of God, being the children of the resur- 
rection." * 

Hence the mother, who seems compelled to 
hide her face from a son, when all his guises 
are completely thrown off, and when " evil 
thoughts, adulteries, murders, thefts, deceits, 
an evil eye, and blasphemy" proceed in quick 
succession from his heart, | may really do so 
from choice. The provisions of the Infinite 
One may be such as will fill with assurance 
and peace, possibly with Godlike joy, a soul 
in which would otherwise be gloomy desola- 
tions. 

* Luke XX. 34-36. t Mark vii. 20-23. 



A WORLD OF FIXEDNESS. l6l 

On one occasion, our Lord " answered them, 
saying, Who is my mother, or my brethren? 

"And he looked round about on them which 
sat about him, and said. Behold, my mother 
and my brethren ! 

"For w^hosoever shall do the will of God, 
the same is my brother, and my sister, and 
mother." * 

No sister, therefore, shall be brotherless ; no 
brother shall be sisterless ; no mother shall be 
childless, neither in the Intermediate World 
nor in the one yet further on. It will be, 
perhaps, as if there were neither Greek, nor 
Jew, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free ; but 
they shall be as the angels in heaven, and 
Christ shall be all and in all.f 

But upon still broader grounds there msLy 
be discovered other possible reliefs from these 
seeming perplexities. These separations in 
the Intermediate World, which all thoughtful 
Unitarians and Universalists, as v^ell as Or- 
thodox people, believe in, and which are most 
unqualifiedly announced in the Written Word, 

* Mark iii. 33-35. t Luke xx. 34-36. 

II 



l62 THE INTERMEDIATE WORLD. 

may appear so needful in view of the highest 
well-being of the universe, that it will not be 
difficult for God, from his exhaustless resources, 
to assuage what would be, but for his interven- 
tion, an inconsolable grief. 

It is a recognized fact, that the more Intelli- 
gent and holy the mother, the more readily 
does she submit, when. In the present life, a 
son is called upon to suffer a just penalty. It 
is the Ignorant mother, of gross nature, who 
cannot see the Importance of maintaining the 
law, nor the importance of protecting society 
against the lawless, who will shriek out her 
reproaches, as though It vv^ere -most inhuman 
and unreasonable to commit her son to prison. 

But an Intelligent mother, of refined sensi- 
bilities, who can comprehend the importance 
of maintaining the justice and authority of law, 
will say, even while she may weep, ^^It is right 
that my son, for the public good, should go to 
prison : I will not prevent It." 

Therefore, If the unrighteous are to be sep- 
arated from among the righteous hereafter, we 
may rest assured that the happiness of the wise 



A WORLD OF FIXEDNESS. 1 63 

and the holy will be as much dependent upon 
the just imprisonment of those who are guilty 
and unsafe as upon their release, even though 
among the guilty are found those who have 
been, whilst on earth, the most near and dear. 
Nay, more ; in proportion as the unrighteous 
have formed characters antagonistic to the 
divine requirements, will the intelligent and 
holy cheerfully submit to whatever God shall 
order. And just in proportion as the intelli- 
gence of the redeemed is increased, or in pro- 
portion to the clearness of their comprehension 
of the holiness of God and of his justice in 
doing all things for the good of the universe, 
in the same proportion w^ill they fully and con- 
fidently exonerate such judgment as has called 
even for the sternest requirements of Gehenna- 
Hades. 

Should it still be insisted that Paradise-Hades 
will nevertheless, at least in some instances, 
feel the loss of the absent ones, whatever be 
the reasons for their exclusion, we confess we 
cannot say that such will not be the case. 

But the relations suggested by this plea, on 



164 THE INTERMEDIATE WORLD. 

the one hand, and admission on the other, are 
very broad and comprehensive. For, upon the 
same ground, it must be admitted, that when 
moral evil entered this universe, a shadow 
crossed every part of it. The universe is not 
what it would have been had sin and evil 
never been known. A damaging factor has 
been introduced which can never be entirely 
eliminated ; the history of sin is a fixture in 
God's government. When the first free moral 
agent transgressed, then a minor strain was 
heard, and the eternal music is not, and never 
can be, quite w^hat it would have been had 
there been no minor strain. 

"We have only to raise this question," says 
one who has profoundly considered these prob- 
lems, "to see that the scheme of nature is 
marred, corrupted, dislocated, by innumerable 
disturbances and disorders. Her laws all con- 
tinue, but her conjunctions of causes are unnat- 
ural. Immense transformations are wrought, 
which represent, on a large scale, the repug- 
nant, disorderly fact of sin. Indeed, what 
we call nature must be rather a condition of 



A WORLD OF FIXEDNESS. 165 

unnature ; apostolically represented, a whole 
creation groaning and travailing in pain to- 
gether with man, in the disorder consequent 
on his sin." 

Nevertheless, the man of faith expects that 
mighty and well-nigh infinite will be the joys 
and triumphs of the redeemed. 

These considerations, upon a moment's re- 
flection, will conduct the inquirer to the bor- 
ders of one of the profoundest principles 
underlying the divine government as now con- 
stituted and administered. In harmony with 
the constitution of the universe, there is some- 
times joy in sadness. *^ Sorrowful, yet always 
rejoicing" is a possibility in a Godlike na- 
ture;* if thus in a limited degree, why not 
yet more so hereafter? 

Horace Bushnell, speaking of the supposed 
agony of the redeemed who are thinking of 
the lost, suggests that those moments of think- 
ing may be the fullest, profoundest, and sub- 
limest in their joyfulness. "There was never 
a being on earth so deep in his peace and so 

* 2 Cor. vi. 10. 



l66 THE INTERMEDIATE WORLD. 

essentially blessed as Jesus Christ ; " yet what 
being ever felt so keenly the evils and suffer- 
ings of sin ? " Even his agony itself is scarcely 
an exception. There is no joy so grand as 
that v^hich has a form of tragedy ; and there 
is, besides, in a soul given up to loss and pain 
for love's sake, such a consciousness of good 
that it rises up in a supreme magnitude, maj- 
esty, and Godlikeness, and has thoughts 
breaking out in it, as the sound of many 
waters ; joys that are full as the sea. We are 
never so happy, so essentially blessed, as when 
we suffer well, wearing out our life in sympa- 
thies spent on the evil and undeserving, strug- 
gling on through secret Gethsemanes, and 
groaning before God, in groanings audible to 
God alone, for those who have no mercy on 
themselves, — what man of the race ever finds 
that in such love, or in such sympathy as this, 
he has been made unhappy? When one has 
been able, after the example of Christ, to bear 
most^ then has he been raised to the highest 
pitch of beatitude." 

Scientific theologians conjecture that God, 



A WORLD OF FIXEDNESS. 167 

though knowing perfectly what would be the 
results, created man a free agent, because, 
upon the whole, it were wiser to do so. It is 
conjectured, also, that the Creator, foreseeing 
the sin and ruin that were to come upon the 
earth, filled it with images and remains of 
death, thus harmonizing all things and antici- 
pating moral evil and its sad consequences ; 
the house was made and furnished throughout 
so as to fit its destined tenant. If, therefore, 
there has been this geological forecast, — that 
there have been anticipations in other respects 
no one questions, — then why may it not be 
supposed that man and the future life, and 
the entire universe, have been so constituted 
that all contingencies and emergencies have 
been fully anticipated and wisely provided for? 
If these suppositions are correct, then such 
provisions may have been made that the sym- 
pathy of holy beings for other and lost beings 
shall not in the least diminish the profoundest 
bliss of the Intermediate World, nor that of the 
ultimate Heaven ; if the Creator has followed 
his ordinary methods, anticipating and provid- 



l68 THE INTERMEDIATE WORLD. 

ing for what his wisdom forecasts, then he has 
so arranged that the minor strain, coming from 
separated, imprisoned, and rebelhous souls, 
heard amid the otherwise subHme and har- 
monious symphonies of the universe, will not 
disturb the deep, ennobling, and Godlike joy 
and peace of the Intermediate World, nor of 
the eternal Kingdom of Heaven, only so far as 
to secure their greater perfection ; and thus 
far, also, and no farther, shall the shadow^s 
of Gehenna-Hades and Gehenna Proper be 
permitted to fall upon the transcendent and 
princely delights of that city whose every man- 
sion is lit by the effulgence and glory of God 
'^ and of the Lamb who is the light thereof." 



lot it ^orld of ^udicmt ^e^ 
wmdB nor Mnnmhmmts, 



169 



V. 

lot d ^orld off ^ndichl ^e= 
wdrds nor ^ttniBhmmk. 



That there is force and truth in the saying, 
*^The voice of the People is the voice of God,'^ 
especially in relation to ordinary convictions 
and judgments, no one questions. It therefore 
follows, as would reasonably be expected, that 
divine thoughts and methods, within certain 
limits, may be correctly inferred, not only, as 
Paul says, from the visible creation, but like- 
wise from human thoughts and methods.* 
Indeed, nothing is more common, in speaking 
of God's dealings with his children, than to 
introduce analogies from the conduct of fathers 
towards their children. In one of the most 

* Compare Rom. i. 20 ; Matt. xvi. 19. 

171 



172 THE INTERMEDIATE WORLD. 

familiar and touching passages from the lips 
of our Lord the foregoing method of reasoning 
is introduced : " Or what man is there of you, 
whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a 
stone? or if he ask a fish, will he give him a 
serpent? If ye then, being evil, know how to 
give good gifts unto your children, how much 
more shall 3^our Father which is in heaven give 
good things to them that ask him? " * 

"Would a father deal thus with his chil- 
dren?" is likewise the frequent reply of res- 
torationists to the advocates of endless pun- 
ishment. " A wicked and incorrigible son, for 
whom parental regard has been well-nigh ex- 
tinguished, is unhesitatingly handed over by 
the father to civil authorities for punishment," 
is the corresponding evangelical rejoinder to 
the advocate of universal salvation, f 

It is thus, upon these acknowledged and 
fundamental principles and analogies, that the 
antecedent probabilities as to the condition of 

* Matt vii. 9-11. 

t Compare Heb. xii. 7, 8 ; Rom. ix. ; 2 Pet. ii. 14, 15. 



NOT JUDICIAL. 173 

the inhabitants in the Intermediate World are 
readily deduced. 

A murder, for instance, has been perpetra- 
ted ; all the obvious circumstances are care- 
fully noted ; motives which could have led to 
the commission of the crime are conjectured ; 
circumstances and motives form a basis of 
suspicion which soon attaches itself to some 
party or parties; then, if circumstantial evi- 
dences multiply against the suspected person, 
and especially if his character is questionable, 
or if motives for committing the deed are easily 
attributed to him, his arrest is deemed justifia- 
ble, and incarceration follows ; the legal trial 
is soon instituted, and if the prisoner's guilt is 
satisfactorily established, his sentence and pun- 
ishment are at length passed and ordered. But 
it must be evident to all that the suspicion on 
the part of the public, the arrest by the civil 
officer, the confinement in jail, and the trial 
before the court of justice, are not, strictly 
speaking, judicial punishments ; they are but 
preliminary legal processes, made necessary 
by the nature of civil administration. Never- 



174 "^^^ INTERMEDIATE WORLD. 

theless, if that prisoner is guilty, he will be a 
sufferer in the meanwhile ; indeed, his distress 
may be excessive long before the judicial sen- 
tence is pronounced or executed; nay, more, 
his agony may torment him day and night, 
seemingly beyond endurance, even before he 
is suspected or arrested. He will be tormented 
by the mortification or the fear of exposure, or 
from the merciless pangs and lashings of a 
guilty conscience. Still this depression or this 
anguish is not judicial punishment, it is merely 
consequential suffering. Not until sentence is 
passed, and the man is taken from jail to the 
gallows, or is put to hard labor in prison, in a 
word, not until external affliction is ordered or 
sanctioned by executive authority, does the law 
recognize the fact that the administration of 
judicial punishment is taking place. 

Inasmuch, therefore, as the mind, for a mul- 
titude of reasons, is constantly inferring divine 
methods from the human, and as the adminis- 
tration and execution of law in every civilized 
land recognize the foregoing principles and 
distinctions in legal procedures, — and as such 



NOT JUDICIAL. 175 

principles and distinctions have for their origin 
and support the profoundest decisions of human 
reason, — we reach the conclusion that the In- 
termediate World, with reference to the right- 
eous, is not, strictly speaking, a place of judi- 
cial rewards, but is rather a temporary resting- 
place, which, however, happily anticipates the 
rewards to be bestowed at a later period in the 
sublime habitations of a later future ; and with 
reference to the unrighteous, the conclusion 
must likewise be, that the Intermediate World 
is a place of temporary confinement, which 
sorrowfully prefigures, however, the gloom of 
a later and a judicial retribution. 

It may be noted still further, that the fitness 
of things, in other respects, likewise increases 
the probabilities almost to a moral certainty 
that the Intermediate World is not a place of 
rewards and punishments. Loyalty, for in- 
stance, has been rendered, and rebellion has 
been organized and prosecuted by souls while 
embodied. The rewards and punishments of 
such obedience and of such rebellion can be 
more fitly administered, one would judge. 



176 THE INTERMEDIATE WORLD. 

while souls are in corresponding conditions ; 
but such will not be the case until after the re- 
embodiment of the dead at the resurrection. ^5 
But aside from such considerations, it must be 
apparent upon still other grounds, that the 
righteous cannot well receive full judicial re- 
wards ; likewise, that the unrighteous, in a wise 
and correctly ordered administration, ought not 
to receive full judicial punishment until after 
the trial, and until after the decision and sen- 
tence of the proper tribunal, provided the ad- 
ministration is to close with such formal and 
final judgment ; of this there can be no ques- 
tion.^^ Were it otherwise, there would be no 
need of the Intermediate World : the final judg- 
ment, too, would be instituted at an inopportune, 
even at an extremely awkward time, and under 
strangely confusing circumstances. To reward 
a man, then try him ; to punish a man, then 
judge him, it must be confessed, is a reversal 
of the principles of justice, and a kind of mock 
administration. 

But, furthermore : a place adapted to dis- 
embodied souls, such as is the Intermediate 



NOT JUDICIAL. 177 

World, must be but illy adapted to souls when 
embodied. So great is the want of adaptabil- 
ity that it is very likely impossible, except for 
a dead man, to pass the portals of the world 
of the disembodied. But after the resurrec- 
tion the soul is to be re-embodied ; * hence w^e 
are forced to infer, upon this ground also, that 
the places in which the righteous are to be 
finally rewarded, and in which the unrighteous 
are to be finally punished, must be essentially, 
at least distinctly, different from those in which 
they have been in waiting for the resurrection 
and the judgment. 

In addition to the foregoing reasons for the 
proposition here advocated, may be mentioned 
others growing out of certain scriptural repre- 
sentations which point to new scenes and 
abodes where re-embodied souls are to be 
introduced at the conclusion of the final judg- 
ment. 

For instance, our Lord, just before his cru- 

* Dan. xii. 2. John v. 28, 29; xii. 24. i Cor. xv. 
Rev. XX, 13. 

12 



178 THE INTERMEDIATE WORLD. 

cifixion, by way of giving encouragement to 
his disciples, said, " I go to prepare a place for 
you."* The infinite Logos, or expression of 
the Deity, which spoke through Jesus of Naz- 
areth, and was perfectly manifested in him, 
hints in this passage that he, the Logos, who 
can be everywhere present, is making ready, 
within the Holy of holies, eternal habitations, 
which, we are to infer, are not yet fully com- 
pleted. 

So, likewise, the New Testament fulfilment 
and explanation of Old Testament types and 
prophecies involve the same thought. It 
was commanded under the old dispensation, for 
illustration, that no one should be admitted to 
the tabernacle excepting the priest when he 
entered to make atonement, f This require- 
ment was ordered, in part at least, to fore- 
shadow the mission of the Lord our Master ; 
as is expressly stated by the apostle : ^' For \ 
Christ is not entered into the holy places 
made with hands, which are the figures of the 

* John xiv. 2. t Lev. xvi. 17. 



NOT JUDICIAL. 179 

true ; but into heaven itself, now to appear in 
the presence of God for us." * 

The Messiah is able, and the only being who 
is able, to accomplish this ; for the union of the 
infinite Logos with Jesus of Nazareth resulting 
necessarily in a double consciousness, the one 
human the other divine, and in capabilities 
limited on the one hand and limitless on the 
other, the Messiah being both man and God, 
renders it possible for him to be with his peo- 
ple in the Intermediate World, and also to enter 
and arrange meantime the Holy of holies for a 
final habitation. Forcible and very suggestive, 
therefore, are his words to Nicodemus : "And 
no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he 
that came down from heaven, even the Son of 
man which is in heaven." f 

In harmony herewith are likewise his words 
of promise to the disciples : "Whither I go ye 
cannot come." "I will come again, and re- 
ceive j'^ou unto myself." | Also his words to the 
Jews : " My Father worketh hitherto, and I 
work." § 

* Heb xi. 24. J John xiv. 

t John iii. 13. § John v. 17. 



l8o THE INTERMEDIATE WORLD. 

The impression derived from these combined 
passages is, that the ultimate world and home 
of the redeemed are not yet inhabited, nor as 
yet in complete preparation ; not at present 
inhabitable, perhaps. 

This thought is brought out still more defi- 
nitely and clearly in the address of Peter upon 
the day of Pentecost, while, speaking of the 
supreme exaltation of the blessed Son and 
Master, he says, "For David is not ascended 
into the heavens." * David was dead ; he had 
passed long since into the Intermediate World, 
but his footfall had not, up to the day of Pen- 
tecost, according to these words of the apostle, 
echoed along the streets of the golden city.^^ 

Thus, likewise, this idea of the delay of final 
rewards, until after the judgment, is beautifully 
brought out by Paul in one of his epistles to 
Timothy : " Henceforth there is laid up for me 
a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the 
righteous Judge, shall give me at that day : 
and not to me only, but unto all them also that 
love his appearing." f 

* Acts ii. 34. t 2 Tim. iv. 8. 



NOT JUDICIAL. l8l 

^^That day^^^ as the connection clearly shows, 
is the day of judgment, and the day of the 
glorious appearing of Christ and his kingdom. 

By combining the following texts, the order 
and arrangements of the great future are easily 
traced : " It is appointed unto man once to 
die." * '^ Behold, he cometh with clouds ; and 
every eye shall see him, and they also which 
pierced him : and all kindreds of the earth 
shall wail because of him. Even so, Amen." f 
" But the day of the Lord will come as a thief 
in the night; in the which the heavens shall 
pass away with a great noise, and the elements 
shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and 
the works that are therein shall be burned 
up." f "And Death and Hades delivered up 
the dead which were in them." § ^- But every 
man in his own order : Christ the first-fruits ; 
afterward they that are Christ's at his coming." |1 
^' So w^hen this corruptible shall have put on in- 
corruption, and this mortal shall put on immor- 

* Heb. ix. 27. § Rev. xx. 13, 14. 

t Rev. i. 7. II I Cor. xv. 23. 

X 2 Pet. iii. 10. 



l82 THE INTERMEDIATE WORLD. 

tality, then shall be brought to pass the saying 
that is written, Death is swallowed up in vic- 
tory. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, 
where is thy victory? " * " Behold, I show you 
a mystery ; we shall not all sleep, but we shall 
all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling 
of an eye, at the last trump : for the trumpet 
shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incor- 
ruptible, and we shall be changed." f "For 
this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, 
that we which are alive and remain unto the 
coming of the Lord shall not prevent them 
which are asleep, for the Lord himself shall 
descend from heaven with a shout, with the 
voice of the archangel, and with the trump of 
God : and the dead in Christ shall rise first : 
then we which are alive and remain shall be 
caught up together with them in the clouds, to 
meet the Lord in the air." f " After this the 
judgment." § 

It appears, therefore, that, after physical 
.death has accomplished the task assigned it; 

* I Cor. XV. 54, 55, X I Thess. iv. 15-17. 

1 1 Cor. XV. 51, 52. § Heb. ix. 27. 



NOT JUDICIAL. 183 

after the blissful repose of the righteous in the 
Intermediate World is brought to an equally 
blissful close ; after the second advent of the 
God-Man has startled the world with its glory 
and majesty ; after the end of the physical uni- 
verse ; after the translation into spiritualized 
organisms of such as are alive at Christ's com- 
ing ; after the resurrection of the dead from the 
Intermediate World, and their perfect re-em- 
bodiment, and after the judgment, — then shall 
the King, even Christ the Eternal, " say unto 
them on the right hand. Come ye blessed of 
my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for 
you from the foundation of the world." ^^^ 

This will constitute the primal introduction 
of the righteous into the scenes where begin 
the judicial rewards of their obedience. 

Thus, likewise, with the unrighteous. After 
their distressing imprisonment in the Intermedi- 
ate World ; after their terror amid the fearful 
scenes of Christ's coming and the end of the 
world ; | after the exposures of their evil deeds 
on the day of judgment, and after the sentence 

* Matt. XXV. 34. t Rev. vi. 12-17. 



184 THE INTERMEDIATE WORLD. 

announcing their final doom, — then shall the 
Judge "say also unto them on the left hand, 
" Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting 
fire, prepared for the devil and his angels." * 

This will constitute also the primal introduc- 
tion of the unrighteous into the scenes where 
begin the judicial punishments for all their 
disobedience. "And," continues the King, 
" these shall go away into everlasting punish- 
ment, but the righteous into life eternal." f ^^ 
The next moment, and for the first time in hu- 
man history, will begin the judicial afflictions 
of the unrighteous, and likewise the judicial 
enjoyments and rewards of the righteous. 

Thus the principles and processes of civil 
administration from which may be inferred the 
divine ; also the nature and fitness of things to 
which conform, with more or less exactness, 
human processes ; likewise the disclosures of 
the Written Word, which are sufficiently expli- 
cit to place the subject beyond controversy in 
the mind of every believer in revelation, — unite 
in supporting the proposition that the Interme- 

* Matt. XXV. 41. t Matt. xxv. 46. 



NOT JUDICIAL. 185 

diate World is not a place of judicial rewards 
and punishments. Nevertheless, as has already 
been noted in case of the sufferings of the guil- 
ty while awaiting their trial before a civil and 
earthly tribunal, thus likewise in the Interme- 
diate World, the unrighteous, while awaiting 
the final judgment, cannot be otherwise than 
consciously miserable ; companionship with 
doomed spirits, and with wicked men of all 
ages, were there nothing else or worse, would 
be enough to make those imprisoned souls 
wretched; the remorse of conscience, which 
may be such as forever to block the way to 
God, must also result in excessive wretched- 
ness ; the certainty of the judgment, and the 
inevitableness of subsequent punishment held 
continually before the lost, will doubtless so 
fill them with ceaseless alarm and terror, that 
the doomed soul would try suicide by annihi- 
lation were that possible ; still these are not 
judicial punishments, fearful as they are ; they 
are merely constitutional and consequential 
sufferings. ^^ 

Thus, likewise, upon grounds of an exactly 



l86 THE INTERMEDIATE WORLD, 

opposite character, it follows that the righteous 
in the Intermediate World cannot be otherwise 
than enchanted with its delights ; they are in 
conscious and heaven-like communion with the 
Master of all future ceremonies ; they are per- 
mitted to form companionship with the pure and 
good of all the centuries and countries ; they 
are in rich and deep enjoyment of the normal 
consequences of righteous living and thinking ; 
they know that the endless and incomprehensi- 
ble future bodes to them no ill ; they are thrilled 
with positive assurances of endless joys at the 
right hand of God ; still, these are not judicial 
rewards, they are simply possessions or inher- 
itances, which are constitutional and consequen- 
tial. The ultimate and glorious heaven, with 
its thrones and crowns, and promised delights 
and employments, — these, the later unfoldings 
of the great future, are what will constitute the 
judicial rewards of righteous behavior, and of 
such faith in the Son of God as has led to the 
imitation of his example. 

But is some believer disturbed somewhat by 
thoughts of these delays in the midway realms? 



NOT JUDICIAL. 187 

Other things equal, one would doubtless prefer 
that the gates of death and those of the ulti- 
mate heaven should be identical, at least not 
far apart; but other things are not equal. The 
Heaven of heavens, as already shown, is pre- 
pared for souls that are to be re-embodied with 
spiritualized organisms ; a delay is thus seem- 
ingly necessary. The scriptures, too, are ex- 
plicit in making the delay certain. Upon 
these grounds, were there no other, the con- 
clusion is reached, which perhaps is not the 
most pleasant one, that the righteous who have 
died, the devout among the patriarchs and 
prophets, among the apostles and early as 
well as later Christians ; the devout also among 
the heathen, men who have never heard the 
name of Christ, but who have complied with 
the conditions of salvation as best they could, 
— such men, doubtless, as Socrates, Plato, 
Seneca, Epictetus, Marcus x\urelius, and mul- 
titudes whose names have never much been 
heard on earth, but who feared God and 
wrought righteousness, — these of the past, and 
all others like them who are to die before the 



l88 THE INTERMEDIATE WORLD. 

end of the world, must first enter the Inter- 
mediate Paradise, then, after human probation 
ends, they are to be received into a city hith- 
erto without other inhabitant than its Infinite 
Builder; a city as new, on that day, to the first 
righteous man who died as to the last-born 
soul which shall rise up to greet the Lord at 
his coming.* 

Yet let there be no false impression as to the 
attractiveness of the Paradise of the Interme- 
diate World. It is perfectly fitted for its pur- 
pose ; nay, that resting-place, as before suggest- 
ed, even in highest mortal estimate is superla- 
tively grand and brilliant ; the world we now 
inhabit, in its loveliest modes, is not its equal. f 
That Intermediate Paradise is a magnificent 
place, but not the most magnificent; it is glo- 
rious, but not the most glorious ; it is as mag- 
nificent and glorious as the Creator could con- 
sistently make it; it lacks nothing, therefore, 
that any one of all its inhabitants shall need 
or desire. 

In such habitations to await ultimate rewards 
will not be irksome. 

* Rev. xxi. 1,2. t Phil. i. 23. 



^he Syrnnsit. 



189 



VL 



The journey from the earth to the unseen 
realms is accomplished either by the separation 
of the soul from the material body through 
death, or by the transmutation of the physical 
organism into such new, and to us unknown, 
material as can exist in the worlds invisible. 

Thus death, on the one hand, or translation 
on the other, is what must be submitted to be- 
fore humanity can fully behold and enjoy exist- 
ences in either the Intermediate or the Final 
worlds. These experiences involved in death 
and translation being so unlike the ordinary 
ways and walks of life, are usually and natural- 
ly shrunk from. Often, therefore, it is said by 
those approaching death, "It is not what is 
beyond, but the passage to it, which I dread." 
But a little careful investigation will greatly 

191 



192 THE INTERMEDIATE WORLD. 

allay such alarm, to all at least who have no 
reason for fearing the afterwards. This con- 
stitutional dread " is only the fear of the 
young bird to trust its wings." 

It is a recognized fact that all physical emer- 
gencies are anticipated and in a measure pro- 
vided for. A well man says to-day, " I was 
never physically better," but to-morrow he is 
prostrated by sickness ; the sick man says, " I am 
better than for months past ; " his strength and 
voice return, the pain is less and the breathing 
easier ; but an hour later he is a corpse ! It 
is thus that nature in many instances perceives 
what is impending, and rising up, seeks with 
all its energies to ward off, or prepare the body 
for, the coming blow. Nature in this, and in 
other ways, steps in to make the roadway 
smooth and easy as possible. ^^ 

Aside from this it may also be noted, that 
the physical organism is so constituted that it 
can endure only a limited amount of suffering ; 
when the limits are reached, unconsciousness 
mercifully ensues. Hence, upon these general 
grounds, an inference can be easily deduced. 



THE TRANSIT. I93 

such as to greatly calm the fear and dread of 
the supposed pain of ph3^sical death. 

The subject, upon physiological grounds, 
allows of still more definite and critical analysis 
and relief. 

Medical science recognizes two general 
modes of death. First, death by old age ; 
second, accidental death, which includes all 
cases not falling under the first class. Theol- 
ogy ventures, how^ever, a third classification, 
which adds death by translation. 

Death by old age, first in the classification, 
is natural and normal to humanit}^ as now 
constituted. It takes place gradually. The 
instincts die ; the digestive power dies ; the 
breathing begins to die ; the heart ceases 
to beat regularly — there is a beat or two, and 
then a long pause, followed by a faint breath ; 
another series of beats, and then a pause, 
the diminution of beats and breaths increases ; 
there is prolongation, then a complete pause, 
— all is still in the death-chamber ! 

'' Like a clock worn out with eating time, 

The wheels of wearj life at length stand still." 

13 



194 ^^^ INTERMEDIATE WORLD. 

"By the strict law of nature," says an emi- 
nent medical authority, " a man should die 
as unconscious of his death as of his birth. 

" Subjected at birth to what would be, in the 
after conscious state, an ordeal to which the 
most cruel deaths were not possibly more 
severe, he sleeps through the process ; by the 
hand of nature death were equally a painless 
portion. The cycle of life completed, the liv- 
ing being sleeps into death when nature has 
her way."* 

Thus very tenderly, even soothingly, like a 
fond mother with her foot on the cradle, 
nature would, if permitted, rock us all gently 
out of the world ; but it would be death by old 
age.^^ 

Accidental or premature death takes certain 
distinct forms : sometimes it begins at the 
brain ; it is occasioned in such instances by the 
failure, for any reason, of the brain to act. 
This form of death is technically termed coma. 
It may be produced by the continued actioq of 

* Richardson's " Diseases of Modern Life." 



THE TRANSIT. I95 

heat, as in sun-stroke ; or by continued expo- 
sure to cold, as in freezing ; or by injuries done 
the brain, involving a shock ; or by any violent 
concussions upon the head, either from falling, 
or from a blow. The same effect is produced 
by narcotic poisons. Dropsy or rheumatism 
of the brain, also hardening and softening of 
the brain, likewise result in death by coma. 
When death takes this form, the dying man 
first loses control of his physical sensations and 
volitions. 

The voluntary, involuntary, and mixed mus- 
cles have no further power of action ; the 
breathing becomes irregular ; the heart fails 
of a necessary supply of nervous influx from 
the brain, and soon ceases to beat; then, with- 
out a twinge of pain, the man dies, or, as we 
say, passes away.^ 

Another form of accidental or unnatural 
death is technically termed asfhyxia^ or that 
beginning at the lungs ; for some reason, in 
this instance, the lungs fail of performing their 
normal function. This form of death may, 
therefore, be produced by anything — as smoth- 



196 THE INTERMEDIATE WORLD. 

ering or hanging — that cuts off from the ca- 
pillary tubes of the lungs the necessary supply 
of pure air. Chronic diseases of the lungs, 
acute inflammation in the mucous membrane 
of the lungs, or any acute form of lung conges- 
tion, or congestion in the bronchial tubes; or 
diphtheria, which sometimes strangles a per- 
son as eff^ectually as if there were at his throat 
an iron \dse in a giant's hand, — terminate in 
death, beginning at the lungs. 

There are often violent physical contortions 
attending this mode of death, but they are in- 
voluntary, and in their last stages are said by 
medical authorities to be entirely devoid of all 
sensation of pain ; the chief uneasiness or un- 
pleasantness being a momentary " want of 
breath." The pure intellections during this 
form of death are sometimes astonishingly 
aroused, so much so, doubtless, as to cause any 
sensations of pain, did they exist, to be alto- 
gether unnoticed. 

The memory, too, often restores, with start- 
ling distinctness, the entire past life, overshad- 
owing completely, by its vividness, what is 



THE TRANSIT. I97 

passing at the moment. Then a gentle phys- 
ical sleep locks up the senses, one after an- 
other, and the soul, without compulsion or re- 
sistance, quits its tenement.^'* 

The third and only remaining form of pre- 
mature death is that beginning with the heart, 
and is technically called syncofe. The so- 
termed heart-diseases, likewise, either excessive 
fright or grief, certain kinds of poison also, in a 
word, anything preventing the contractile power 
of the heart, as well as any accident preventing 
the heart from sending the blood throughout 
the system, terminate in this form of death. 
Painful sensations during death, beginning at 
the heart, are either slight or brief. The 
death pallor steals over the features ; cold per- 
spiration starts from every pore ; the pupils of 
the eyes dilate ; the vision grows dim ; then is 
heard by the dying man that indescribable 
sound which resembles both the trickling of 
water and the buzz of insects ; the heart flutters ; 
the sense of feeling gives way ; there is a heavy 
and final sigh, and the wonderful mechanism 
moves not, and feels not.^^ 



198 THE INTERMEDIATE WORLD. 

Such are the different forms of accidental 
death. There are certain general symptoms 
common to each type, which may be noted. 
The senses, for instance, are suspended in the 
following order. The sight yields first; all 
objects presented will be blurred, then veiled 
in darkness. "Do you know me?" asked a 
friend of Mr. Sumner, when dying. ^' Yes," 
was the reply, "but I cannot see you." Then 
followed the remarks, "I am quiet;" "I am 
tired." 

The next sense sealed up in the process of 
death is that of taste ; whatever is placed upon 
the lips produces no sensation, and conse- 
quently is utterly tasteless. Next the sense of 
smell deserts the dying man : the cologne or 
camphor held to the nostrils by the hand of 
kindred or friend is not recognized. Up to 
that moment the words of love and the fare- 
wells are distinctly audible ; but next follows 
the loss of this sense of hearing; and, lastly, 
the sense of touch. The hand pressed by the 
hand of the kind-hearted physician, or the lips 
of love imparting a kiss to the cold forehead, 



THE TRANSIT. I99 

are alike unrecognized. What is next? But 
this is anticipating. 

Physiological science is emphatic in its as- 
surances that all our constitutional or human 
fears and dreads of the pain of dying are 
groundless. Medical science constantly re- 
iterates the statement that the suffering is over 
when death ensues ; that the physical pangs 
of death are only imaginary ; and that there is 
no conscious death-agony, no terrible sunder- 
ing of the soul from the body, as is sometimes 
represented. Physical death, we are assured, 
hurts one no more than falling asleep. 

The hurried and labored breathing, the pe- 
culiar sound called the " death-rattle," the 
fixed and upturned eyeball, instead of being 
evidences of suffering, are now admitted by 
all medical authorities to be signs that the 
brain has lost all, or almost all sensibility to 
outward or inw^ard impressions. There is, 
therefore, in the event of death, we may rest 
confident, not the least mental or corporeal 
anguish. There is nothing, physiologically 
speaking, but insensibility, and that need not 
be dreaded. 



20O THE INTERMEDIATE WORLD. 

Of the other mode of leaving the world — 
that of translation — not much can be said.^^ 
The instances hitherto have been so rare that 
medical science is perplexed and has no prog- 
nosis. But we are nevertheless assured, when 
amid the scenes of dissolving and transform- 
ing worlds the close of human probation is 
announced,* that then the ordinary forms of 
death shall no longer appear or interfere, and 
the whole world of inhabitants remaining shall 
pass hence by translation. f 

Though physiological science is silent upon 
this subject, still the inference derived from 
the perfection of divine arrangements and from 
all analogies, is, that the experiences and emo- 
tions attending translation will be only those 
of pleasure and delight. Like all other chem- 
ical changes of nature, the transmutation of 
material into spiritualized organisms, in the 
event of translation must be not only pleasur- 
able but instantaneous ; the hearse gives way 
to the flying chariot, and the dreaded sexton's 
services are entirely dispensed with. 

* Rev. X. 3. t ^ Thess. iv. 17 ; i Cor. xv. 51, 52. 



THE TRANSIT. 20I 

It thus appears that through either of these 
doors, even the more objectionable ones, the 
simple matter of transit is not such as to make 
one hesitate. The doorway is sufficiently 
curious and pleasurable of itself to induce 
almost an}'- inquiring mind to experiment upon 
the threshold, were it possible afterwards to 
open again the door to the earth side'. That 
which is dreadful, the only thing to be dreaded 
indeed, is one of the rooms upon the other 
side of the door ; but of that we have spoken 
sufficiently and need speak no further. 

The sudden awakening to other realities at 
the moment of death ought likewise to relieve 
the fear of dying. " Die and re-exist ! " says 
Goethe ; '^ for so long as this is not accom- 
plished, thou art but a troubled guest upon 
an earth of gloom." "Is death the last sleep? 
No, it is the last final awakening," said Sir 
Walter Scott. The Indians say : " Death does 
not kill, it merely makes us invisible." 

One takes a railway train at night and 
sleeps ; wakes in the morning two hundred 
miles away. What, however, if the wrecked 



202 THE INTERMEDIATE WORLD. 

train does not allow time for waking ; then 
how far? 

How much of a new landscape next morn- 
ing Is before that traveller's vision? What 
does he know more than he would had there 
been no wreck? "The dead man Is wise," we 
think, very wise; but the trouble is, he Is 
silent. Yet we are not left destitute of hints. 
Often, as the souls of the righteous have been 
hovering upon the borders between this and 
the other world, they have seemed to be In 
full view of the regions of the Intermediate 
Paradise. " I see," said the dying Bertetine, 
" a brightness so great that the sun pales be- 
fore It." "I see the heavens open," said Lord 
Henry Otto upon the scaffold, " and an exceed- 
ing brightness above the noonday sun." Ban- 
dicon said to his father, both being upon the 
scaffold, and both about to die as martyrs : 
r Behold, I see the heavens open, and millions 
of angels ready to receive us ! " * 

It has already been observed that the first 
physical sense that yields to the encroachments 
* Compare Acts vii. S5i 5^« 



THE TRANSIT. 203 

of death is that of sight ; and spiritual sight 
appears, according to a multitude of testimo- 
nies, to be the first sense given to mortals 
when approaching the world to us invisible ; 
the optical effect being like that of dissolving 
views — scenes melting into other scenes. 

Said Servulus just before breathing his last: 
" Do you not hear that great and wonderful mu- 
sic w^hich is in heaven? Do you not perceive 
the surpassing fragrance of the odors from 
heaven filling all the air?" Bertetine, Rom- 
ula, Payson, and likewise a multitude of the 
saints of God, when dying, have seen glorious 
sights, and then have caught the richest fra- 
grance, and then have heard transporting 
music. ^^ Under some types of disease, even 
at the moment of dissolution, after the physi- 
cal sense of sight has given place entirely 
to spiritual vision, the power of speech being 
still retained, a dear and familiar name of 
some dead companion has broken from the 
lips of the dying as if there were more than a 
recognition — as if their hands had already 
clasped. So near are they of the Intermediate 



204 THE INTERxMEDIATE WORLD. 

World, that with only this slight change in the 
seeing faculties one would be able to behold 
their abode before his feet have ceased to press 
earthly pavements ; as with but a slightly in- 
creased power given to the eye by the teles- 
cope, new and beautiful clusters of stars are 
brought out of what appeared to be an empty 
patch of blue sky.^^ Thus through this divided 
attention, death loses completely its victory. 
While it is busy hiding from view things on 
the earthward side, the charming prospects on 
the Paradise side are appearing ; while death 
is busy shutting the doors which open upon 
" a pleasing retrospect, or on sweet and loving 
faces, or upon objects around which our mem- 
ories cling, and on skies that smiled over our 
infancy," at the same moment angel hands are 
busy opening other doors, higher upward, 
through solemn yet brilliant galleries. "This 
is the springing up of the spirit on a line of i 
swift affection," as the evening bird, with un- 
erring precision, shoots through the dusk of 
evening to its nest in the bough. " O death, 
where is thy sting?" "Children," said the 



THE TRANSIT. 205 

mother of John Wesley, the last words she 
uttered, " children, as soon as I am released, 
sing a psalm of praise to God." What better 
could the children do? 

The literal distance through which the tran- 
sit is made we know not, and it matters not. 
Measuring distances by the time occupied in 
making the passage, there is every reason for 
believing that to the righteous the first Para- 
dise is not far off; the intervening valleys 
appear to be spanned by a bound, the rivers 
seem to be crossed, and the mountains to be 
scaled in a breath ; it is as if the departing soul 
groping after its fondest object is heralded and 
welcomed within the better realms even before 
the soul and body have fully parted company. 
The dead seem, therefore, in reality to be but 
just out of sight, round the corner of the tem- 
ple of nature. We dwell In the suburbs ; they 
are in a kind of kingly metropolis. We are in 
the basement ; they are in something like the 
royal chambers of state. 

But does the troublesome doubt already ex- 
pressed return at this moment with redoubled 



2o6 THE INTERMEDIATE WORLD. 

force to some mind, that these thoughts of 
such a glorious future for the redeemed, and 
one so readily and pleasantly accessible at 
death, are but dreams of the living and illu- 
sions of the dying? Yet, O mortal, keep ever 
in mind, as an inspiration to righteous conduct 
and devout faith, that to continue in a future 
existence is no such miracle as to have begun. 
When a human being can say, "I now am," all 
further wondering should end. To exist for- 
ever is among the least of mysteries involving 
human life. That we are in a world studded 
overhead with stars, and under-foot so vari- 
ously and richly carpeted, assures the soul 
that nothing in the future, by way of fitness 
and enchantment, is impossible, which is de- 
sirable. Therefore, for the smiling and in- 
viting scenes of the Intermediate World not 
to fill the vision of the righteous soul at death 
would be the wonder of wonders. 

When the hour comes that the veil shall 
be drawn aside, and when, further on, after 
the Intermediate World has surrendered its 



THE TRANSIT. 20*J 

inhabitants, after the smoke of the dissolving 
material creation has cleared up, and after the 
spiritualized and indestructible organisms are 
received ; when the great bell of the universe 
strikes the knell of time, w^hen the dawn of 
eternity is realized, and when the ultimate 
Heaven, that Paradise supreme — that goal of 
all the fondest dreaming of mortals — appears 
amid the closing scenes of the Judgment, then, 
how captivating, nay, entrancing the thought, 
O immortal soul, that all this is yours forever I 
Will if be yours forever 1 



o teB. 



14 



209 



i ^ n* 



Note I. (See page ii.) 

The outlook, upon a rational basis, has been extremely 
unsatisfactory. Said Omar Rheyam : *' Resign thyself to 
make what little Paradise thou canst here below, for, as for 
that beyond, thou shalt arrive there, or thou shalt not." 

"The best immortality which the greatest poet of pa- 
ganism could devise for his hero, Achilles, is interpreted 
by the hero's answer to the attempted consolations of the 
living Ulysses at their interview in Hades : 

' I would be 
A laborer on earth, and serve for hire 
Some man of mean estate, who makes scant cheer, 
Rather than reign o'er all who have gone down to death.' " 

Except Plato, there is no more Christian pagan than 
Plutarch. In his letter of consolation to Apollonius, on 
the death of his son, the following was the only hope he 
had to offer to the grief-stricken father : 

*'If the sayings of the old philosophers and poets are 
true, as there is a probability to think, that honors and 
high seats of dignity are conferred upon the righteous after 
they are departed this life, and if, as it is said, a particular 
region is appointed for their souls to dwell in, you ought 
to cherish very fair hopes that your son stands numbered 
among those blest inhabitants." 

Said Hobbes, when dying: *' I am about to take a leap 
in the dark." 

211 



212 THE INTERMEDIATE WORLD. 

While Moliere was living at Auteuil his house used to be 
a general rendezvous for the choice spirits of French liter- 
ary society. One night La Fontaine, Racine, and others 
were discussing the question of happiness over their cups, 
and arrived at the conclusion that their first and chief 
happiness would be not to be born, and the second to die 
promptly; so they then and there resolved to drown them- 
selves in the Seine. Moliere averted their rash purpose, 
by arguing that such a noble and philosophic act ought to 
be performed only in public, and in the broad light of day. 
This stratagem, having induced a postponement till the 
morrow, their lives were saved. 

** Since then," says John Stuart Mill, writing of the death 
of his wife, '* I have sought for such alleviation as my state 
admitted of by the mode of life which most enabled me to 
feel her still near me. I bought a cottage as close as pos- 
sible to the place where she is buried, and there her daugh- 
ter and I live constantly during a great portion of the 
year." 

*'The comprehensive question," says Strauss, '* must 
sooner or later present itself, by what right we dispute the 
reality of the apparent dissolution of the entire individuality 
in death, and assume the continued existence of a portion, 
of whose existence our perceptions aiford us no evidence. 
This supposition is, in fact, an assumption on a colossal 
scale, and if we inquire after its proofs, all we shall meet 
with will be a wish." 

*' We beiieve,"says Mr.David, in his ** Positivist Primer," 
** that there is a real immortality for man, both objective 
and subjective, but no conscious life hereafter so far as our 
faculties go." ** It may be useful," says Mr. Harrison, in a 
late number of the ** Nineteenth Century," ** to retain the 
words Soul and Future Life for their associations, provided 
we make it clear that we mean by Soul the combined facul- 
ties of the living organism, and by Future Life the subjec- 



NOTES. 213 

tive effect of each man's objective life on the actual lives of 
his fellow-men." Mr. Weiss says: *^I shall be, or I shall 
not be. If it is * not be,' I shall know nothing about it." 



Note II. (Page 17.) 

The different passages in which the word Skeol is found, 
show by their connection that the Septuagint is right in 
translating it Hades, with the meaning of Intermediate 
World. The English version, however, without any suit- 
able reason for it, renders the word in the following 
ways : 

Sheol as *'pit."* 

Num. xvi. 30 — go down quick into the pit, (^Hades.) 
xvi. 33 — went down alive into the pit, {Hades.) 

Job xvii. 16 — bars of the pit, {Hades,) 

*' The narrative concernirug Korah and his company," as 
it has been well said, *' utterly excludes the thought of a 
grave as the locality to which they went down ; and Job be- 
held, in his mind's eye, something more vast and impris- 
oning than a tomb or mausoleum with marble gates. One 
is reminded rather of the gates of Hades (Matt. xvi. 18) and 
of the gates of death (Ps. ix. 13)." 

Sheol as *' grave." 
Gen. xxxvii. 35 — into the grave unto my son. 

xlii. 38 — with sorrow to the grave. 

xliv. 29 — with sorrow to the grave. 

xliv. 31 — with sorrow to the grave, 
I Sam. ii. 6 — down to ihe grave — and up. 
I Kings ii. 6 — down to the grave in peace. 

* We are indebted to the author of the '* Unseen World," in part, for these 
references. 



214 THE INTERMEDIATE WORLD. 

1 Kings ii. 9 — down to the grazie with blood. 
Job vii. 9 — down to the grave — come up no more. 

xiv. 13 — hide me in tho. grave. 

xvii. 13 — the grave is mine house. 

xxi. 13 — go down to the grave. 

xxiv. 19 — the grave those which — sinned. 
Ps. vi. 5 — in \\iQ grave who — give thee thanks. 

XXX. 3 — brought up mj soul from the grave. 

xxxi. 17 — let them be silent in \.\\q, grave. 

xHx. 14 — like sheep — are laid in the grave* 

xlix. 14 — their beauty — consume in \hQ, grave. 

xlix. 15 — from the power of the grave. 

Ixxxviii. 3 — my life — nigh unto the grave. 

Ixxxix. 48 — soul from the hand oi t\\^ grave, 

cxli. 7 — bones scattered at the grave's mouth. 
Prov. i. 12 — swallow them up alive, as \h^ grave, 

XXX. 16 — never satisfied — the grave. 
Eccles. ix. 10 — nor wisdom in the grave. 
Cant. vi. 6 — jealousy as cruel as the grave. 
Isa. xiv. II — thy pomp brought down to \)[iq grave, 

xxxviii. 10 — go to the gates of the grave. 

xxxviii. 18 — the grave cannot praise thee. 
Ezek. xxxi. 15 —went down to \.h.Q, grave. 
Hosea xiii. 14 — ransom — from power of the grave, 

xiii. 14 — O grave ! I will be thy destruction. 

Sheol as «^hell." 
Deut. xxxii. 2 — burn unto the lowest hell, 

2 Sam. XX. 6 — deeper than /lell. 

xxii. 6 — sorrows (pangs LXX) oi kelU 
Job xi. 8 — deeper than hell. 

xxvi. 6 — hell is naked before Him. 
Ps. ix. 17 — the \Yicked — turned into hell, 

xvi. 10 — not leave my soul in hell. 

xviii. 5 — sorrows (pangs LXX) oi hell. 

Iv. 15 — go down quick into hell. 



NOTES. 215 

Ps. Ixxxvi. 13 — delivered — from the lowest hell, 
cxvi. 3 — the pains (dangers LXX) oi helL 
cxxxix. 8 — make my bed in kelL 

Prov. V. 5 — her steps take hold on hell. 
vii. 27 — her house the way to helL 
ix. 18 — her guests in the depth oi helL 
XV. II — hell and destruction before the Lord. 
XV. 24 — depart from hell beneath, 
xxiii. 14 — deliver his soul from hell. 
xxvii. 20 — hell and destruction are never full. 

Isa. V. 14 — hell hath enlarged herself. 
xiv. 9 — hell from beneath is moved, 
xiv. 15 — shalt be brought down to hell, 
xxviii. 15 — with hell we are at agreement, 
xxviii. 18 — jour agreement with hell, 
Ivii. 9 — debase thyself even unto hell, 

Ezek. xxxi. 16 — I cast him down to hell, 
xxxi. 17 — they also went down into hell, 
xxxii. 21 — speak to him out of the midst of hell, 
xxxii, 27 — gone down to hell with their weapons. 

Amos ix. 2 — though they dig into hell, 

Jonah ii. 2 — out of the belly of hell, 

Hab. ii. 5 — enla*-geth his desire as hell» 



Note III. (Page 17.) 

This may be inferred from the use of the two words : 
Kehber, as "grave" or ** sepulchre." 
Ps. V. 9 — their throat is an open sepulchre, 
Ixxxviii. 5 — the slain that lie in the grave, 
Ixxxviii. II — loving-kindness be declared in — grave* 
Isa. xiv. 19 — thou art cast out of thy grave, 
Jer. V. 16 — their quiver is an open sepulchre, 
XX. 17 — my mother — have been my grave. 



2l6 THE INTERMEDIATE WORLD. 

Ezek. xxxli. 22 — his graves are about him. 

xxxii. 23 — graves set in the sides of the pit. 
xxxii. 25 — \iQr graves are round ubout him. 
xxxii. 26 — \i^r graves are round about him. 
xxxvii. 12 — open your graves — out of your graves* 
xxxvii. 13 — when I have opened yowr graves, 
xxxvii. 13 — brought you up out oi yoyxx graves, 
xxxix. II — give unto Gog — place of graves. 

Nahum i. 14 — I will make thy grave, 

Bohr, as ''pit" or "cistern." 
Ps. vii. 15 — He made a//V. 

xxviii. I — go down into the pit, 

XXX. 3 — go down to the pit, 

xl. 2 — out of a horrible pit, 

Ixxxviii. 4 — go down into \h^ pit, 

Ixxxviii. 6 — me in the lowest//*/. 

cxliii. 7 — go down into iho, pit, 
Prov. v. 15 — out of thine own cistern, 

xxviii. 17 — shall flee to the///. 
Eccles. xii. 6 — broken at cistern, 
Isa. xiv. 15 — sides of the pit, 

xiv. 19 — to the stones of the///. 

xxiv. 22 — prisoners — in the ///. 

li. I — to the hole of the pit, 
Ezek. xxvi. 20 — descend into the pit. 

xxvi. 20 — go down to the///. 

xxxi. 14 — go down to the ///. 

xxxi. 16 — descend into the pit, 

xxxii. 18 — go down into the///. 

xxxii. 23 — sides of the ///. 

xxxii. 24 — down to the///. 

xxxii. 25 — down to the///. 

xxxii. 29 — down to the ///• 

xxxii. 30 — down to the ///. 
Zech. ix. II — prisoners out of the ///. 



NOTES. 217 

Note IV. (Page 20.) 

The v/ord Hades is found in the New Testament eleven 
times. It is always rendered in the English version " hell," 
except in i Cor. xv. 5^, where it is translated ^' O grave." 

Matt. xi. 23 — shalt be brought down to /le/l. 

xvi. 18 — the gates of /le/l shall not prevail. 
Luke X. 15 — shalt be thrust down to //ell. 

xvi. 23 — in /lell he lifted up his eyes. 
Acts ii. 27 — not leave my soul in /lell. 

ii. 31 — his soul was not left in /lell. 
I Cor. XV. ^^ — O grave^ where is thy victory.? 
Rev. i. 18 — the keys oi hell and of death. 

vi. 8 — was Death, and Hell followed with him. 

XX. 13 — death and hell delivered up the dead. 

XX. 14 — death and hell — cast into the lake of fire. 

Of the error of our English version Dr. Sears, following 
Dr. Campbell, thus speaks : 

'* The word Hades, occurring eleven times in the New 
Testament, never answers to that idea, and never ought to 
have been so rendered. In almost all the versions of the 
Scriptures except ours, the distinction between these two 
words is carefully preserved. Why it was not so preserved 
in ours is obvious enough. Luther, in his German transla- 
tion, uniformly confounded them, because he would recog- 
nize none but the extreme Protestant doctrine of only two 
states after death. Hades, therefore, which describes the 
third, or mediate state, he has confounded with Gehenna, 
and the English translators have followed in his track." 



Note V. (Page 34.) 

Says Dr. Carpenter, in a discussion upon the General 
Relations of Mind and Body : 



2l8 THE INTERMEDIATE WORLD. 

*' Thus, then, the Psychologist may fearlessly throw him- 
self into the deepest waters of speculative inquiry in regard 
to the relation between his mind and its bodily instrument, 
provided that he trusts to the inherent buoj^ancy of that 
great fact of consciousness, that we have within us a self- 
determining Power which we call WilL And he may even 
find in the evidence of the intimate relation between men- 
tal activity and physical changes in the brain, the most 
satisfactory grounds which science can afford for his belief 
that the phenomena of the material universe are the ex- 
pressions of an infinite mind and will, of which man's is 
the finite representative/' 



Note VI. (Page 34.) 

The facts are thus represented : 

"When we give a rabbit chloroform, and then remove a 
portion of its skull, the animal suffers no pain, and conse- 
quently does not fall into such contortions as to cause the 
act of taking away parts of the skull to injure the delicate 
texture of the brain. We have succeeded at last in uncov- 
ering the living, palpitating cerebral tissues without dis- 
turbing their delicate machinery ; and we have done this by 
the use of chloroform, not known in the world as an anaes- 
thetic until a few years ago. Using electrical currents that are 
just distinguishable by the tip of the human tongue, and 
employing blunted electrodes that wilJ not scarify the ner- 
vous webs we touch, we may stimulate the exposed brain 
of a living animal and ascertain that the stimulus on differ- 
ent parts produces different motions. We may accurately 
foretell these motions, after having had a sufficient experience 
in such kinds of experiments. One particular part of the 
brain, for instance, will, if stimulated, produce the attitude 
of resistance in the animal ; and another point, if stimu- 
lated, will cause the attitude of fear. In short, a large por- 



NOTES. 219 

tion of the brain has now been investigated in this way so 
thoroughly that we may affirm that it is a keyboard on 
which electricity may play. This effect of galvanic cur- 
rents on the automatic nervous mechanism is peculiarly evi- 
dent on the lower or automatic nerve-arcs. If we stimulate 
a centrifugal automatic nerve, we shall produce motion in 
the muscle attached to the correlated centrifugal fibre." 

For a full account, see Dr. Carpenter's Mental Physiology, 
pages 709-722. 



Note VII. (Page 49.) 

The statement of Jewish belief by Josephus is the follow- 
ing : ^'In this region (Hades or hell), there is a certain 
place set apart, as a lake of unquenchable fire, whereinto we 
suppose no one hath hitherto been cast, but it is prepared for 
a day afore determined by God, in which a righteous sen- 
tence shall deservedly be passed upon all men, when the un- 
just, and those that have been disobedient to God, and have 
given honor to such idols as have been the vain operations 
of the hands of men as to God himself, shall be adjudged to 
this everlasii7zg punzshment, as having been causes of de- 
filement; while the just shall obtain an tjzcorruptible and 
never-fading kingdom." Compare Deut. xxxii. 22. 

Says Dr. Sears : " Such is the ' Sheol ' of the Old Testa- 
ment, and the Greek Seventy almost always render it 
by the word ' Hades.' It never means Gehenna, or hell, 
in the modern sense. See the shocking absurdity of ren- 
dering the words of the sorrowing old patriarch, * I will go 
down to hell (Sheol) to my son, mourning.' So that at the 
time of Christ the Jewish mind, at least with so many as 
used the Septuagint version, — and these were the majority, 
— including the Apostles, must have become perfectly famil- 
iarized with the meaning of * Hades,' not as a place of final 
retribution, but the receptacle of all departed souls." 



220 THE INTERMEDIATE WORLD. 



Note VIII. (Page 49.) 

Says the author of the " Unseen Universe " : " If we next 
turn to the Greek and Roman mythologies, we find ideas of 
a future state very similar to those entertained by the Egyp- 
tians, from whom probably the Greek notions were origi- 
nally largely derived. 

" They called by the name of Elj^sium the abode appro- 
priated to the souls of the good, while those of the wicked 
suffered punishment in Tartarus. It has been well re- 
marked by Archbishop Whately that these regions were 
supposed to be of the most dreamy and unsubstantial na- 
ture." 

Plato, in his " Phcedon," represents Socrates as &aying, 
in the last hour of his life, to his inconsolable followers, 
*' You may bury me if you can catch me ! " He then added, 
with a smile, and an intonation of unfathomable thought 
and tenderness: "Do not call this poor body Socrates. 
When 1 have drunk the poison, I shall leave you and go to 
the joys of the blessed. I would not have you sorrow at 
my hard lot, or say at the interment, * Thus we lay out Soc- 
rates ; ' or, * Thus we follow him to the grave, or bury him.' 
Be of good c/iecr; say that you are burying my body only.''^ 

Plato still further speaks of the future life thus : "If any 
one's life has been virtuous, he shall obtain a better fate 
hereafter; if wicked, a worse. But no soul will return to 
its pristine condition till the expiration of ten thousand 
years, since it w^ill not recover the use of its wings until 
that period, except it be the soul of one who has philoso- 
phized sincerely, or together with philosophy has loved 
beautiful forms. These, indeed, in the third period of a 
thousand years, if they have thrice chosen this mode of 
life in succession, . . . shall in the three thousandth year 
fly away to their pristine abode; but other souls, being 
arrived at the end of their first life, shall be judged. 
And of those who are judged, some, proceeding to a subter- 



NOTES. 221 

raneous place of judgment, shall there sustain the punish- 
ments thQy have deserved; but others, in consequence of a 
favorable judgment, being elevated into a certain celestial 
place, shall pass their time in a manner becoming the life 
they have lived in a human shape." 

'' Boast not of having escaped the justice of the gods," 
saj^s Plato, in another connection, " for thou shalt never be 
lost sight of by it. Thou art not so small as to hide in the 
depths of the earth, nor mounting on high shalt thou flj 
up to heaven ; but thou shalt receive thy due reward from 
the gods, either whilst thou stajest here, or in the realms 
of Hades, or carried to a place more wild than these." 



Note IX. (Page 50.) 

The following passages refer to the Intermediate World 
as an abode for all the dead ; Hades, as a general term, rep- 
resents it : 

Job xxvi. 5 — Dead things — under the waters. 

xxxviii. 17 — the realm o^ shades* 
Ps. Ixxxviii. 10 — the dead arise and praise. 
Prov. ii. 18 — her paths unto the dead, 

ix. 18 — the dead are there. 

xxi. 16 — congregation of the dead, 
Isa. xiv. 9 — it stirreth up the dead for thee. 
Job xiv. S^6 — 

' * Where groan the giant shades 
Beneath the waters and their habitants ; 
All bare before Him lies the Underworld, 
And deep Abaddon hath no covering." 

Tayler Lewis, 

Rev. XX. 13 — *' And death and Hades delivered up the 
dead." 



222 THE INTERMEDIATE WORLD. 

In the following instances the reference is to the Interme- 
diate World, viewed as the resting-place of the righteous; 
Paradise-Hades designates it: 

Luke xvi. 22 — " Was carried by angels to Abraham's 

bosom " 
Luke xxiii. 43 — " To-daj shalt thou be with me in 

Paradise." 
2 Cor. xii. 4 — " Caught up into Paradise." 
Phil. i. 23 — ''A desire to depart and be with Christ, 

which is far better." 

The following passages allude to the prison-house of the 
wicked in the Intermediate World ; Gehenna-Hades repre- 
sents it : 

Luke viii. 31 — go out into the deep. 

xvi. — and in Hades he lifted up his eyes. 

1 Pet. iii. 19 — preached unto the spirits in prison. 

2 Pet. ii. 4 — cast them down to Hades* 

Jude 6 — reserved in everlasting chains. ^ 

Rev. XX. 7 — Satan loosed out of his prison. 

The Ultimate Heaven is referred to in the following in- 
stances : 

Gal. iv. 26 — Jerusalem — above free — mother of all. 
Heb. xi. 10 — (the) city which hath (the) foundations. 

xi. 16 — he hath prepared for them a city. 

xii. 22 — city of the living God, the heavenly JerU'\ 
salem, 

xiii. 14 — here no — city — we seek (the) one to come. 
Rev. ii. 7 — in the midst of the Paradise of God. 
Rev. iii. 12 — city of my God (the) new Jerusalem. 

xxi. 2 — the holy city, new Jerusalein. 

xxi. 10 — the great city^ the holy Jerusalem. 

xxii. 19 — the holy city. 



NOTES. 223 

And the lower Gehenna, or Hell, are referred to in the 
following : 

Deut. xxxii. 22 — unto the lowest SkeoL 

Matt. V. 22 — oi hell fire (the Gehenna of the fire). 

V. 29 — cast into Jiell (into Gehenna). 

V. 30 — cast into hell (into Gehenna). 

X. 28 — destroy soul and body in >^e// (apolesai in 
Gehenna). 

viii. 12 — cast out into the darkness the outer. 

xxii. 13 — cast him into the dark7iess the outer. 

XXV. 30 — servant into the dark?iess the outer. 

xviii. 9 — cast into //('//fire (the Gehennaof the fire). 

xxiii. 15 — child oi hell (son of Gehenna). 

xxiii. 33 — the damnation of hell (the judgment of 
the Gehenna). 
Mark ix. 43 — go into hell (into the Gehenna). 

ix. 45 — cast into hell (into the Gehenna). 

ix. 47 — cast into hell fire (the Gehenna of the fire). 
Luke xii. 5 — cast into hell (the Gehenna). 
James iii. 6 — set on fire oi hell (bj the Gehenna). 
2 Pet. ii. 17 — of (the) darh^iess reserved forever. 
Rev. ix. I — bottomless pit. 

xix. 20 — into the lake of (the) fire. 

XX. 10 — into the lake of (the) fire. 

XX. 14 — into the lake of (the) fire. 

XX. 15 — into the lake of (the) fire. 

xxi. 8 — into the lake (the) burning with fire. 



Note X. (Page 51.) 

The discussions growing out of the word aionios, the 
term employed to express duration, are at present very ear- 
nest. One of the most notable passages is in the XXV. of 



224 THE INTERMEDIATE WORLD. 

Matthew, where the word in one verse measures the period 
of bliss, in the other that of misery. According to this 
passage, " the pillars of heaven are no firmer than the foun- 
dations of hell. The celestial nature of saints and angels is 
no more immutable than the infernal nature of devils and 
sinneis." This word has nothing about it to justify its 
limitation in the instance before us. Its natural meaning 
is that of unlimited duration ; any other meaning is but sec- 
ondary. Plato and other classic writers always used it when 
wishing to express perpetual duration. All Jewish writers 
who used the Greek tongue likewise employed it when they 
meant endless duration, or eternity. 

Why, then, did Jesus select this particular word, the prin- 
cipal term for unending duration in Hellenistic Greek, it 
may well be asked, if he did not mean to say that the dura- 
tion of the punishment of the finally impenitent sinner is to 
be unending? He sought in every way to make men happy 
here and hereafter; why, therefore, did he not more care- 
fully guard his language, if he meant otherwise than the 
language inevitably expresses.? If we say that he does not 
mean what he says in this passage, may we not as well say 
that he does not mean what he says when representing 
himself as the Son of God, or the Saviour of the world.? 
If he had meant otherwise, he could have used other words 
— plenty of them. Would he not have done so.? He was 
delicate in his sensibilities; he never wounds unnecessa- 
rily ; but upon these questions he betrays no tremulous and 
hesitating tenderness. Solemn, kind, yet straightforward 
and unqualified is this announcement. 

Plato, upon speculative grounds, arrived at a similar 
conclusion: *' Each pleasure and pain, having a nail as it 
were, nails the soul to the body, and fastens it to it, and 
causes it to become corporeal, deeming those things to be 
true which the body asserts to be so. For, in consequence 
of its forming the same opinions with the body, and de- 
lighting in the same things, it is compelled, I think, to 



NOTES. 225 

possess similar manners, and to be similarly nourished, so 
that it can never pass into Hades in a pure state, but must 
ever depart, polluted by the body, and so quickly falls into 
another body, and grows up as if it were sown, and conse- 
quently is deprived of all association with that which is 
divine, pure, and uniform." 

That our Lord taught endlessness of future punishment, 
as understood by others than orthodox theologians and 
exegetes, see Renan's " Life of Jesus," page 243; Thomas 
Paine's '* Age of Reason," Parti.; Hittell's "Evidences 
against Christianity," pages 121, 127; Theodore Parker's 
Letter to Dr. Nehemiah Adams, 185S; also his Discourses, 
entitled "Matters of Religion," pages 239, 243; Report of 
American Unitarian Association, 1853, page 28 ; Sermons 
on Endless Punishment, by Starr King, 1858, pages 5, 6; 
Monthly Religious Magazine, July, 1S61 ; February, 1S70, 
page 205 ; Christian Examiner, March, 1854, pages 282, 
&c, ; July, 1859, page 120. 



Note XL (Page 54.) 

In harmony with the conception of the Intermediate 
World, herein maintained, the account and vision of angels, 
good and bad, recorded in both the Old and New Testament 
Scriptures, are to be regarded either as glimpses of that 
world, or else of its inhabitants; the ultimate Heaven and 
the ultimate Gehenna not yet being in readiness for its 
destined occupants. 



Note XIL (Page 59.) 

As there is no mention of Abraham seeing the rich man, 
while there is explicit mention of the rich man beholding 

15 



226 THE INTERMEDIATE WORLD. 

Abraham and Lazarus, the inference has been drawn that 
the representation is designed to teach that the inhabitants 
of Paradise-Hades are in the realms of Hght, thus visible; 
while the inhabitants of Gehenna-Hades are in darkness, 
thus invisible, though their voices and words are audible. 



Note XIIL (Page 60.) 

It has been recently remarked in connection with the 
subject of the telephone, that *' the longing desire of men in 
all ages and countries has been to communicate with each 
other from unlimited distances, and from the time of the 
Gauls, who sent messages from mouth to mouth from ele- 
vated places, which was done with great rapidity, down to 
the present day when the human voice is transmitted by 
means of the wire, and its quality recognized, has man de- 
voted his greatest energies for its accomplishment. At 
first messengers from hilltop to hilltop shouted the news, — 
then fires on hills and mountains gave the signal, — then 
came the semaphore, an upright post supporting a horizon- 
tal bar, which turned upon a point, indicating by its posi- 
tion words and sentences, — then trained pigeons to carry 
the written message itself, — then optical telegraphy, alter- 
nately exposing and cutting off a continuous beam of light, 
— then the telegraph, — and now the telephone." 



Note XIV. (Page 61.) 

Dr. Channing, speaking of *^ the death and glory " theory 
of Universalists, says: **To my mind a more irrational 
doctrine was never broached." (Works, ed. 1872, Vol. IV., 

P- 159 ) 



NOTES. 227 

Dr. Hedge, speaking of the same theory, says : '* It is a 
groundless and preposterous idea, as it seems to me, of 
human destiny." (Unitarian Review, September, 1S74, p. 
105.) 

*' Conditions of happiness or misery," saj^s Dr. Flanders, 
a Universalist, "always attend upon character; therefore, 
conditions of happiness or misery attend man after death." 
This is the position now held by nearly all Universalists. 



Note XV. (Page 69.) 

The frequent use of the word sleep in connection with 
the dead, has led not a few to suppose that the arrest in 
the Intermediate World is equivalent to unconsciousness. 
The following passages are therefore urged in support of 
the theory of unconsciousness : 

Matt, xxvii. 52 : *' Many bodies of the saints, who slept, 
arose. 

Acts vii. 60: Of Stephen's death, ^^ ke /ell asleep. And 
devout men carried Stephen to his burial." 

Acts xiii. 36 : " Davidyl^// on sleep.'''' 

John ix. 4 : " The night cometh, when no man can work." 

John xi. 11: Jesus says, " Our friend Lazarus (literal 
Greek) has fallefi asleep, but I go that I may avjake him out 
of sleepy 

I Cor. vii. 39: " If her husband be dead (Greek same as 
above, shouldy^r// asleep^, she is at liberty to be married." 

I Cor. xi. 30 : *' For this cause many are weak and sickly 
among you, and many sleep,'''' 

I Cor. XV. 6: "The greater part remain unto this pres- 
ent, but some 2ive fallen asleep. ^^ 

I Cor. XV. 18 : " Then they also that 2SQ fallen asleep in 
Christ, are perished." 

I Cor. XV. 20: "Christ is risen from the dead, a first- 
fruits of them that slept," 



228 THE INTERMEDIATE WORLD. 

I Cor. XV. 51 : '' Behold I shew you a mystery; we shall 
not all sleepy 

I Thess. iv. 13 : *' But I would not have you to be igno- 
rant, brethren, concerning them that are asleep,'' "Them 
that ARE asleep." 

I Thess. iv. 14: "For, if we believe that Jesus died and 
rose again, even so them that slcej^ in Jesus will God bring 
with him." 

1 Thess. iv. 15 : '* For this we say unto you by the word of 
the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the com- 
ing of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep,'''' 

2 Pet. iii. 4 : " For since the fathersy^// asleep.''^ 

These passages, however, can be reconciled with others 
which teach consciousness after death, and with scientific 
facts, only by supposing that the word sleep is employed to 
represent what seems to the eye to be the condition of the 
dead, namely, that of being asleep. Professor Mead, of 
Andover, makes the following pertinent reply to Dr. Ives, 
who has laid considerable stress upon the word " sleep" in 
connection with the dead. 

" One point much emphasized by Dr. Ives and his coad- 
jutors, is the fact that the Bible so largely describes the 
state of the dead as a ' sleep.' This fact itself, so far from 
establishing their doctrine, is, on their own theorj^, a com- 
plete refutation of it. We must bear in mind that they in- 
sist on a ' literal ' interpretation of Scripture. Now sleep 
certainly is not death; still less the termination of exist- 
ence. Dr. Ives says that sound sleep is a state of uncon- 
sciousness. 'Is it not well known,' he asks, * that sound 
sleep is dreamless (p. 277).^' We answer that this is not 
well known. On the contrary, it is a more probable opin- 
ion that in all sleep the mind is active {z)ide especially Ham- 
ilton's * Metaphysics,' lect. xvii.). But, not to press this 
point, though we by no means yield it, yet we must say that 
even unconsciousness is by no means synonymous with 
non-existence. Dr. Ives relates (p. 278) the incident of a 



NOTES. 229 

suspension of consciousness caused by an accident to the 
president of Carleton College, as an illustration of his the- 
ory. But does he mean to affirm that the president was 
non-existent during that period? On the contrary, no one 
ever uses the term ' unconscious ' unless he is speaking of 
some exhtent person or thing of whom the unconscious- 
ness is affirmed. Therefore, not to insist, as we might, that 
a state of sleep is not, per se, a state of unconsciousness, on 
any theorj' the biblical description of death as 'sleep' is 
utterly irreconcilable with the notion of the extinction of 
being, unless we resort to the assumption that the term 
' sleep ' is figuratively used. But not only would this be 
contrary to Dr. Ives's fundamental principle of hermeneu- 
tics, but he does not himself pretend that the word is used 
figuratively. He simply regards sleep as equivalent to 
death, and death as equivalent to non-existence ! 

"Directly in line with the argument against annihi- 
lationism involved in the foregoing is another biblical 
mode of speech already touched upon. When it is said 
that ' men ' are to be raised, that * we,' ' they,' or ' you ' 
are to be raised, this phraseology itself implies that there 
are persons existent who are to be ' clothed upon ' with the 
spiritual body. And precisely so we may reason respecting 
the prior question concerning the nature of the soul. Even 
if it were true that the * soul ' were nothing but the physi- 
cal organism, yet when the Bible says ' 77iy soul,' ' thy soul,* 
&c., what are we to understand hy such language, ' liter- 
ally ' interpreted, except that there ^yq perso7is to whom the 
souls belong P In fact, the argument against materialism 
derived from this universal use of the personal pronouns 
holds with full weight when applied to biblical language. 
Even if we eliminate the idea of an immaterial personality 
from the terms 'soul,' * spirit,' 'heart,' &c., yet we are 
driven back to the same idea by the use of the personal 
pronouns. In fact, the whole presumption in the case 
is thus made to bear with tremendous weight against the 



230 THE INTERMEDIATE WORLD. 

notion of those who make the person identical with the 
organism. 

*' We thus learn from the Bible, when it speaks of God, 
e. £"., of ' ^^e7n which are asleep ^ that the dead are de- 
scribed as perso7is, and, moreover, as persons not even 
dead, still less non-existent, but simpljas asleep. Wheth- 
er, now, this sleep is to be understood more or less strictly 
it is not necessary here to inquire. It may readily enough 
be admitted that in the Bible, especially in the Old Testa- 
ment, the condition of the dead is predominantly portrayed 
as a slumberous, inactive, if not totally unconscious one. 
But the main question is quite unaffected by the interpre- 
tation we put upon these expressions, so long as we adhere 
to what Dr. Ives*s own rule of exegesis forces us to, viz., 
that sleep cannot mean non-existence, and that, therefore, 
those who sleep the sleep of death are not extinct. We are 
not warranted in drawing any other inference, unless we 
can find unequivocal declarations in the Bible that there is 
in death an absolute termination of existence. Such, cer- 
tainly, cannot be found." 



Note XVI. (Page 83.) 

For a full account of the different views which have been 
presented concerning this passage, see Lange's Commen- 
tary on the Epistles of Paul, ''''Excursus on the Descensus 
ad Infernos ^^^ at the conclusion of Capt. III. 



Note XVII. (Page ^.^ 

The passages here referred to will bear in this connection 
very careful study; such especially as 2 Cor. ii. 15, 16; 
Ezekiel ii. 3-5; Isaiah vi. 9, 10; Matthew xiii. 14; Mark iv. 
12 J Luke viii. 10 ; John xii. 40 ; Acts xxviii. 26 ; Romans xi. 8. 



NOTES. 231 

Note XVIII. (Page 107.) 

The evidences as to the teaching of the Scriptures upon 
this subject must be regarded as well-nigh conclusive to 
any unprejudiced person, after weighing the following 
admissions : 

Says Renan : ^*The others (the wicked) will go into Ge- 
henna. Gehenna was the valley west of Jerusalem. At 
various periods the worship of fire had been practised in it, 
and the place had been a sort of cloaca (receptacle of filth). 
Gehenna is, therefore, in the mind of Jesus, a dismal valley, 
foul and full of sin. Those excluded from the kingdom 
will be burned, and gnawed by worms, in company with 
Satan and his rebel angels. There, then, shall be weeping 
and gnashing of teeth. The kingdom of God will be like 
a closed wall, lighted up within, in the midst of this world 
of darkness and of torments. This new order of things 
will be eternal. Paradise and Gehenna shall have no end. 
.... That all this was understood literally by the disci- 
ples, and the Master himself, at certain moments, stands 
forth absolutely evidenced in the writings of the time." 

Says Theodore Parker: ''To me it is quite clear that 
Jesus Christ taught the doctrine of eternal damnation ; if 
the evangelists — the first three, I mean — are to be treated 
as inspired, I can understand his language in no other 
way." 

Mr. Parker still further aflSrms in his discourses that ** It 
is vain to deny or attempt to conceal the errors of his 
(Jesus) doctrine — a revengeful God, a Devil absolutely 
evil, an eternal Hell," &c. " He (Jesus) considers God so 
imperfect as to damn the majority of men to eternal tor- 
ment." ''Hell is eternal, and the wide road thereto is trav- 
elled well." " I think there is not in the Old Testament or 
the New, a single word which tells this blessed truth, that 
penitence hereafter will do any good." 



232 THE INTERMEDIATE WORLD. 

W. R. Alger makes the following admission; "No fair 
critic can assert positively that when it {aw7iios) is con- 
nected with future punishment, it has the stringent mean- 
ing of metaphorical endlessness. On the other hand, no 
one has any critical right to say positively that in such 
cases it has not that meaning." 

Starr King offers the following frank concession; "I 
freely say that I do not find the doctrine of the ultimate 
salvation of all souls clearly stated in any text, or in any 
discourse that has been reported from the lips of Christ. 
I do not think we can fairly maintain that the final restora- 
tion of all men is a prominent and explicit doctrine of^ the 
four gospels. We needlessly narrow the grounds of oppo- 
sition to sacrificial orthodoxy, by attacking it from such a 
position." 

Rev. Mr. Sears writes thus: "It is the average opinion 
of Unitarians, that Restorationism is not a doctrine of 
Revelation, fairly yielded by the interpretation of Scrip- 
ture." 

The adopted report of the executive committee of the 
American Unitarian Association (1853) employs the follow- 
ing language ; " It is our firm conviction that the final res- 
toration of all is not revealed in the Scriptures, but that 
the ultimate fate of the impenitent wicked is enshrouded 
in impenetrable obscurity, so far as the total declarations 
of the sacred writings are concerned ; and while we do 
generally hold to the doctrine of the final universality of 
salvation, as a consistent speculation of the reason and a 
strong belief of the heart, yet we deem it to be in each 
case a matter of contingence, always depending on condi- 
tions freely to be accepted or rejected. Those of us who 
believe (as a large majority of us do) in the final recovery 
of all souls, therefore, cannot emphasize it, in the fore- 
ground of their preaching, as a sure part of Christianity, 
but only elevate it in the background of their system, as a 
glorious hope." 



NOTES. 233 

The editor of the Monthly Religious Magazine, in 
1870, thus represents the Unitarian view of this subject : 
"Unitarians do not believe it (Universal Restoration) as a 
doctrine of Revelation fairly jaelded by the interpretation 
of the Scriptures. This vs^e mean is the average opinion. 
They do not think the Bible gives any verdict as to the 
final salvation of all mankind. It reveals clearly the issues 
of this life in the life proximate beyond the grave ; but 
what lies beyond that^ in the abyss of eternity, touching 
the incorrigibly wicked, they do not think has been a mat- 
ter of disclosure in any written revelation." 

Robert IngersoU doubtless expresses the feelings of nearly 
all belonging to his class, when saying that "The Bible is 
the foundation of hell, and we never will get rid of the 
idea of hell until we get rid of the idea that this book is 
true." 

The experience and convictions of Professor Tholuck, 
of Halle, have doubtless been more than once repeated in 
the case of others. He says : " I started with the idea that all 
the passages in the New Testament relating to future retri- 
bution might be made to harmonize with the idea of a future 
restoration ; but the passages relating to the sin against the 
Holy Ghost could not possibly be bended to this theory. 
These passages finally determined my conviction and teach- 
ing as to the eternity of divine retribution." 



Note XIX. (Page 117.) 

Plato, in the Gorgias^ gives the view of Socrates as to 
the unhappy effects of punishment upon the worst charac- 
ters : " * It behooves that every one who suffers punishment, 
if justly punished by another, should either become better 
and be benefited, or should serve as an example to others, 
that others seeing him suffer the things which he suffers, 



234 ^^^^ INTERMEDIATE WORLD. 

and being afraid, may reform. Now there are some that 
are profited when punished, both by gods and by men ; 
these are such as have sinned with curable sins.* Never- 
theless, by torments and sorrows cometh their benefit both 
here and in hell, for it is not possible otherwise to be freed 
from wickedness. But others have been wicked in the 
extreme, and on account of such wickedness are become 
incurable. Of these, examples are made; they themselves 
are no longer benefited, being incurable, but others are 
benefited, seeing these sufter on account of their sin the 
greatest, the most afiiictive and most terrible woes e^cr- 
7ially,'\ being regularly fixed as examples there in the prison 
of hell, as shows and warnings to the wicked perpetually 
arriving;.' '' 



Note XX. (Page 121.) 

This thought has been forcibly stated by a writer in the 
Christian Examiner, thus: "True, it is an awful thought 
that the consequences of our characters should endure 
through the ages of eternity, stretching out far beyond the 
grave. But they must endure so long as the characters re- 
main the same ; and difilcult indeed will be the task to alter 
them, after we have here enjoj^ed the sunshine of God's 
goodness, which leads to repentance, in vain." 

Dr. Hedge, in a very explicit protest against Philosophi- 
cal Universalism, states the thought thus; "But does it 
follow that all will be converted.^ that saving influences 
will act with compulsory force.? that the soul, as such, is 
fatallj' bound and predetermined to goodness? that every 
Borgia is a Carlo Borromeo in eclipse, and every Brinvil- 
liers an undeveloped Nightingale? Has this pleasant fancy 
any foundation but its own pleasantness, any authority but 
an undefined conception of the possibilities of Divine gov- 

♦iUfftjUrt dpiapTf]fxaTa, f rov del XP'^^'OV, 



NOTES. 235 

ernment? It is not a natural consequence, not a develop- 
ment according to cause and effect, but a monstrous acci- 
dent, a wild interposition of juggling miracle, which we 
expect when we so dream." 

See also Dr. Dewey's discourse on " Delay in Religion j '* 
likewise his controversial discourses, pp. 114-117. 



Note XXI. (Page 126.) 

The supposed utterly destructive effect of sin is essen- 
tially annihilation, a fate which is admitted as possible by 
those who rank themselves among the unorthodox. Says 
Dr. Channing (Works, 1S72. vol. iv. p. 166) : " I have spoken 
of the pains and penalties of moral evil, or of moral evil in 
the world to come. How long they will endure I know not. 
Whether they will issue in the reformation and happiness 
of the sufferer, or will terminate in the extinction of his 
conscious being, is a question on which the Scripture 
throws no clear light." 

The editor of the Unitarian Review (May, 1877) states the 
view thus : ** It is true of men that he who commits sin is 
the slave of sin, and that all evil courses and choices tend 
to shut men up to certain consequences which limit free- 
dom and destroy self-mastery, tending to induce insanity or 
impotence in the nature so vitiated and enslaved through 
the evil choice." 

Says Dr. Dewey in his controversial discourses : *^ In the 
Universe, there are no agents to work out the misery of 
the soul like its own fell passions ; not the fire, the dark- 
ness, the flood, or the tempest. Nothing within the range 
of our conceptions can equal the dread silence of con- 
science, the calm desperation of remorse, the corroding of 
ungratified desire, the gnawing worm of envy, the bitter 
cup of disappointment, the blighting curse of hatred. 



236 THE INTERMEDIATE WORLD. 

These^ pushed to their extremity^ may he enough to destroy 
the soul; as lesser sufferings^ in this ivorld^ are sometimes 
found to destroy the reason,^^ 

Dr. Bartol gives forcible expression to these views of the 
deadly effects of sin: **The peculiarity in this Christian 
form of reward and retribution is, that it shows all the 
noble and worthy qualities as enlarging and preserving 
our being, and lifting it up into new measures of honor 
and durable joy; but sets forth all disloyalty as con- 
tracting the soul, letting down its stature, and consigning 
it at last, in a sort of mental consumption, poor and dim 
w^ith fading consciousness, to hell, to waste away and per- 
ish with the dross and offscouring of the world. Hell is 
thus not so much torment as loss. It has torment for a 
warning; but, the warning being refused, the torment leads 
to and ends in privation of happiness and extinction of 
power. Compared with the infinite heaven, it is indeed 
but a petty cell, as the valley of Hinnom was to the huge 
swell of the earth. But let us not therefore imagine we 
can afford to smile at it or be inspired by it with no dread. 
It is large enough for our decay. There is room in it for 
death and annihilation of faculty. It has space to provide 
our souls a grave. It lacks not horrid chambers abundant 
to lodge all who wish to travel and take passage that way. 
If we let the spirit in us run into the excitement of unholy 
passions, into the ruin of falsehood and fraud, or into the 
slow and sure decline of selfishness ; if the love of pleasure 
be suffered to infect us, or licentious profligacy to touch us 
with its plague; never doubt there will be verge enough in 
hell to receive and awfully secure us. A splendid palace 
goes down, in the fire, into a very little ashes ; and dwell- 
ing and tower are by the stream swept out of human sight 
and admiration into irrecoverable wreck. In what small 
enclosures and imperceptible seclusions is the glory of the 
world buried! And, ah ! how miserably will your heart, if 
you expose it to every flame of ungodly rage, and every 



NOTES. 237 

disease of iniquitous habit, be trampled under foot and 
thrown carelessly away ! and even the spiritual nature in 
3'ou, with the costly structures that adorn the world, and 
the once proud, gay flesh of a hundred generations, sink 
and disappear. From what could a discerning spirit more 
convulsively shrink than from this fearful plunge into the 
drowning w^aters, to let the Lethe of oblivion pass over all 
its finer feelings ; or from the creeping of this deadly sleep, 
as over the traveller through the snows, to fasten on every 
gracious afi:ection ; and then to live on, if life continue, in 
dispossession of inward birthright, under a stupefying 
stricture of reason and the heart, with the mark of a dia- 
bolic seizure upon the richest revenue of the soul, deprived 
of the privileges of love and worship and holin'ess, bereft 
of what is manly, and kept a stranger to all that is divine; 
half — and, O ! that far the better half — of our real prop- 
erty alienated, fenced off, and blotted out! Does anybody 
want a more dreadful idea of hell than that? From that 
"will not every one flee for his life ? " 

Says Dr. Hedge : *' What, then, — we renew the question, 
— is the final destination of incorrigible and exceptional 
souls. f* Not endless torment, we fancy, but everlasting 
(spiritual) death, utter extinction of the moral life. All the 
analogies point to this conclusion, all true deductions from 
the moral nature confirm it; and, for those who demand the 
warrant of the letter, what conclusion more just to the letter 
of the Scripture, which declares that ' sin when it \^ finished 
bringeth forth death'.? Conscience (or self-consciousness) 
is the life-principle of moral natures. The tendency of sin 
is to weaken and corrupt, and finally to mortify and de- 
stroy, that principle. When, accordingly, the evil tendency 
exceeds a certain stage of development, the soul loses the 
power of self-recovery, and — the evil tendency still pro- 
ceeding — arrives at last to rest in evil as its good, and to 
sin without compunction, or any inward restraint or con- 
tradiction, (the stage of Devildom or * Evil Spirits. ) 



238 THE INTERMEDIATE WORLD. 

Then — the evil tendency still proceeding — commences a 
process of mortification, which involves, as its final con- 
summation, loss of consciousness ; for consciousness sup- 
poses a capacity of distinguishing good and evil, and loss 
of voluntary power, for voluntary power involves also a 
moral element. Sin is then finished, and has brought forth 
death. The soul as a moral agent and a conscious individ- 
uality is extinct; as a monad it still survives. No longer a 
person, but a thing, its condition thenceforth is not a ques- 
tion of psychology, but of ontology. And here we dis- 
miss it." 



Note XXII. (Page 126.) 

See report of the executive committee of the American 
Unitarian Association, quoted in Note XVIII. 



Note XXIII. (Page 129.) 

Origen was aniong the first in the Church to broach this 
idea. *' You cannot, and you shall not be lost; the evil 
you would choose shall be severed from you, do what you 
will ; the good you would not have shall be forced upon 
you, struggle against it as you may." 

James Freeman Clarke, representing others belonging to 
the same school, reiterates the sentiments of Origen thus : 
*' The power of the human will to resist God is indeed in- 
definite, but the power of love is infinite. Sooner or later, 
then, in the economy of the ages, all sinners must come 
back in penitence and shame to their Father's house, say- 
ing, * Make us as thy hired servants.* .... May we not 
say to the sinner, * You may resist God to-day, to-morrow, 
for a million years ; but sooner or later you must return, 
obey, repent, and submit ' ? " 



NOTES. 239 



Note XXIV. (Page 143.) 

The case is forcibly put by Professor Bartlett : ** The hu- 
man frame has sometimes fainted at the mere sight, and the 
human spirit lost its balance in the prospect, of single in- 
stances of the suffering which God calmly beholds, yea, and 
sends from the heavens in myriad number, day and night, 
through all time. God is our Father; but these plain facts 
show that he is as different from a human father as a holy 
God is from a sinful man." 

Joel Parker pertinently asks : " Would a father on earth 
consign his children to poverty, shame, sickness, loss of 
reason, and death, attended with the most afflicting circum- 
stances.? Would a father on earth choose to plunge his 
children into the ocean, and leave them to the mercy of the 
tempest ? Would he set a child's house on fire while he was 
buried in soft slumber, and consume him in the flames ? " 

Robert Ingersoll presents his atheistic view thus : ** What 
would we think of a father, who should give a farm to his 
children, and before giving them possession should plant 
upon it thousands of deadly shrubs and vines ; should stock 
it with ferocious beasts and poisonous reptiles; should take 
pains to put a few swamps in the neighborhood to breed 
malaria ; should so arrange matters, that the ground would 
occasionally open and swallow a few of his darlings; and 
besides all this, should establish a few volcanoes in the im- 
mediate vicinity, that might at any moment overwhelm his 
children with rivers of fire.? Suppose that this father neg- 
lected to tell his children which of the plants were deadly ; 
that the reptiles were poisonous ; failed to say anything 
about the earthquakes, and kept the volcano business a pro- 
found secret, would we pronounce him angel or fiend? And 
yet this is exactly what the orthodox God has done." 

In the Boston lectures by Rev. Joseph Cook, the same 
thought is thus developed : '* Here is the Commonwealth 



240 THE INTERMEDIATE WORLD. 

of Massachusetts. What if she should make a law that 
every man who is habitually intemperate shall lose good judg- 
ment? We should say that she is terribly in earnest. That 
is a fearful thing to do. Would you vote for any such regu- 
lation? Take away a man's judgment for habitual intem- 
perance ! Why, the thing he most needs, under such temp- 
tation, is sound judgment; and to crush in his good sense 
is to tempt him more and perhaps to ruin him ! Ask me to 
vote for a law that every man who is habitually intemper- 
ate shall lose good judgment! There is a Commonwealth 
of which we have heard, where the laws are not passed by 
count of heads and clack of tongues — a Commonwealth 
governed by Superior Powers, among which there is no 
vacancy waiting to be filled by any human election; and in 
that Commonwealth such is the law, and it is executed 
every time. What do you think that Commonwealth 
means? It is terribly in earnest. It is terribly partisan. 
It has an opinion as to the difference between intemperance 
and temperance. If across the vault of the sky were writ- 
ten that opinion in letters of fire, it could not be proclaimed 
more emphatically than it is by the law that every habitu- 
ally intemperate man loses good judgment. But now will 
you vote for a law in Massachusetts providing that every 
man who is habitually and persistently intemperate shall 
have every nerve racked by pain, shall find the very holy of 
holies of the physical organism invaded by hot pincers, 
shall be put upon the rack and tortured, as if demons had 
him, and shall go hence in delirium tremens f Very few 
men would vote for such a law as that. It is a terrible 
thing to injure a man's health. His family depends on 
him; children depend on him; orphans are to be regarded. 
We must be liberal. There cannot possibly be passed any 
such regulation, unless we forget the interests of wives and 
of these little ones, who are not responsible for coming 
into the world. Surely, liberalism will have no support to 
give to a law by which habitual intemperance incapacitates 



NOTES. 241 

a man for the supporting of his family. There is, how- 
ever, a Power yonder — which seems not to be governed by 
sentiment like this — which has made a law that every 
habitually intemperate man shall have his veins tortured 
and shall have every nerve seized in red-hot pincers. 
That government is terribly in earnest. That is what it 
does. It does that every time. You know that. There is 
not a particle of doubt on this subject. There is not a 
scintilla of unrest in men's minds on this whole topic. 
What do you suppose the government means. f* But now 
what if it should be enacted in Massachusetts, in addition 
to both these other laws, that every habitually intemperate 
man shall transmit a diseased constitution to his offspring, 
and that this injury to the health of the children shall en- 
dure to the third and fourth generation.'^ Who would vote 
for such a regulation.? Where is the man educated in Ar- 
noldism ; where is the man brought up on the platitudes 
of Spencerian Nescience ; where is the person who thinks 
that, on the whole, whatever we do, the nature of things is 
on our side; where is the man that believes that it is safe 
to teach the people to rely on an opportunity for repent- 
ance after death, that would not exclaim with horror if a 
proposition were made to him to pass such a law.? ' Is thy 
servant a dog that he should do this thing?' If Massachu- 
setts should adopt such a law, and execute it, you would be 
sure of two things at least, that she is terribly partisan, and 
that she is terribly in earnest. The Supreme Powers have 
enacted such a law, and executed it every time ; and they 
have not made an apology for six thousand years." 



Note XXV. (Page 176.) 

Origen states this principle very clearly, showing how 
early it must have entered into the thinking of the primi- 
tive church : '' Our soul, which in its own nature is incor- 

16 



242 THE INTERMEDIATE WORLD. 

poreal and invisible, in whatever corporeal place it existeth, 
doth always stand in need of a body, suitable to the nature 
of that place respectively; which body it sometimes bear- 
eth, having put off that which before was necessary, but is 
now superfluous for the following state; and sometimes, 
again, putting on something to what before it had, now 
standing in need of some better clothing, to fit it for those 
more pure, ethereal, and heavenly places." 



Note XXVI. (Page 176.) 

The subject of the final judgment has been so fully dis- 
cussed in the author's book, entitled *' Lost Forever," that 
he does not feel at liberty to repeat the arguments in this 
connection, but begs leave to refer to p. 301. 



Note XXVII. (Page iSo.) 

Dr. Sears' comment upon this passage is entirely satis- 
factory. '*Most obviously Peter assumes before his hear- 
ers, as a conceded fact, that David was still in Hades, and 
was to remain there till the final judgment; which leaves 
him at liberty to apply exclusively to Christ language in 
the Psalms which described the exaltation of some one to 
God's right hand. The syllogism is. This cannot mean 
David, for you know yourselves that he has not yet risen 
into the heavens. We know that Christ has, and therefore 
he is the person here described." 

In support of these views we quote also from this same 
author a comment upon Philippians ii. 10: *'That at the 
name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, 
and things on earth, and things tuider the earth* The ex- 
pression here used {Karax^ovnav) is the appropriated syno- 
nym of Hades. By things in heaven, things on the earth, 



NOTES. 243 

and things in Hades, the Apostle means to include the 
whole rational universe. He does not name things in hell 
or Gehenna, for that was not conceived of as having inhab- 
itants until after the last judgment should take place." 



Note XXVIH. (Page 183.) 

*' De Wette finds here the idea of predestination (Rom, 
viii. 28) : But what is here spoken of is the eternal foun- 
dation of the kingdom for the subjects of the King. There 
is no contradiction to John xiv. 2 ; for here the calling and 
foundation is referred to; there, the actual building up 
of the heavenly community.'* (Lange's Com. Matt. xxv. 
34.) 



Note XXIX. (Page 184.) 

The word translated ^'everlasting" in the first clause of 
this verse, and " eternal" in the second clause, is the same 
— aiomos. There is no reason for this change in the transla- 
tion ; the reading should be either '* eternal," or else ''ever- 
lasting," in both instances. 



Note XXX. (Page 185.) 

It may be asked if the parable of the rich man and Laza- 
rus does not represent the rich man in a condition of in- 
flicted punishment.'* 

If the case is studied critically, it will appear that his 
sufferings correspond to what are properly termed conse- 
quential, rather than judicial, afilictions. 

The word translated, ''being in torments," has no article 
in the original, and is frequently used, especially without 
the article, to signify bodily pangs resulting from disease; 



244 ^^^ INTERMEDIATE WORLD. 

the inference is, therefore, that it is an internal trouble, 
not an external affliction, which this man is suffering. 
Hence there is no necessity for supposing that this rich 
man was in Gehenna fire; he was enduring merely the 
normal consequences of a life of sin. Sufferings of this 
kind may, and sometimes do, seem like fire. Hardened 
sinners have expired with the cry of *'Fire" upon their 
lips; but the fire was within. 

Sir Francis Newport, rising on his elbows when dying, 
exclaimed : *^ O, the insufferable pangs of hell ! " and falling 
back, expired. 

The celebrated Talleyrand on his death-bed was visited 
by Louis Philippe, king of the French. '' How do you 
feel?" said the king. The answer was : '* Sire, I am suffer- 
ing the pangs of the damned ! " 

Sir Thomas Scott said : *' Until this moment, I believed 
that there was neither a God nor a hell. Now I know and 
feel that there are both ; and I am doomed to perdition by 
the just judgment of the Almighty." 

Others have died with wails like the following upon their 
lips: *' I am a lost soul ;" *' The fires of hell are already con- 
suming me." But certainly these are not the literal and 
legal pangs and fires of the nether Gehenna ; for these souls 
were still on earth. The torments of the rich man, those 
of Newport and of Talleyrand, of Scott and of others, must 
have been subjective though terrific ; they were consequen- 
tial, not judicial. 



Note XXXL (Page 192.) 

Dr. Richardson, in his work entitled ''Diseases of Mod- 
ern Life," thus speaks of Nature's provisions against the 
dread of death : "The very young know only of death by 
what they accidentally hear of it, and, happily, have no 
more dread of it than of sleep. The adolescent, full of life, 



NOTES. 245 

think death impossible in them, even when it is closing 
their eyes. The continually afflicted and wretched learn to 
feel that death is better than a bitter life. Those who, be- 
tween the meridian and the decline of life, have peace in 
their possessions, whose ways are prosperous in all things, 
and who have felt the dread of death during the transi- 
tional stage from prime strength to first weakness, find 
their fears gradually allayed by a growing sense of lesser 
care for that which is, and by the development of a mental 
process of adaptation to the inevitable. The old, passing 
beyond even this phase, die, by a change of physical state, 
to themselves imperceptible, when the harmony of nature 
is maintained to its designed end." 



Note XXXII. (Page 194.) 
The closing scenes in the life of Jacob, as recorded in 
Genesis (xlviii. xlix.), happily illustrate death by old age. 



Note XXXIII. (Page 195.) 
Death, beginning at the brain, finds scripture illustra- 
tion in the case of Goliah (i Samuel xvii. 48-51), and in 
death by sunstroke of the child of the Shunamite woman, 
(2 Kings iv. 18-20.) 



Note XXXIV. (Page 197.) 
This form of death is illustrated in the drowning of the 
heavily armor-clad hosts of Pharaoh (Exodus xlv. 23-28). 

Dr. Tracy, in the Popular Science Monthly, for May, 
speaking of the effects of a sudden inspiration of water 
into the lungs when drowning, says that the person 
*' would probably become almost immediately unconscious 
and never rise to the surface. As soon as the fluid filled 



246 THE INTERMEDIATE WORLD. 

his lungs, all feelings of chilliness and pain would cease, 
the indescribable semi-delirium that accompanies anaesthe- 
sia would come on, with ringing in the ears and delightful 
visions of color and light, while he would seem to himself 
to be gentlj sinking to rest on the softest of beds and with 
the most djelightful of dreams." 



Note XXXV. (Page 197.) 

The type of death termed syncope^ that beginning at the 
heart, finds illustration, where rupture from the outside is 
the cause, in the death of Absalom (2 Samuel xviii. 14-17) ; 
when rupture from the inside (heart-break) is the cause, in 
the death of our Lord (John xix. 30; compare 32-34). An 
instance where a shock causes the action of the heart to 
cease is illustrated, probably, in the death of Ananias and 
Sapphira (Acts v. 4-11). 



Note XXXVI. (Page 200.) 

Reference has been made in this volume to instances of 
translation (pp. 67-69) ; with which compare Luke ix. 29- 
36. It has likewise been suggested that a world adapted to 
the disembodied is not such as to be adapted to re-embodied 
souls after the resurrection. The statement has also been 
made, that the ultimate Heavens are not yet in complete 
preparation for their inhabitants. Hence a difficulty arises 
in case of those already translated ; what is their condition 
and location .? 

The difficulty is acknowledged, but the facts remain. 
These cases recorded in the Scriptures are exceptional ; 
what further exceptional or miraculous provisions are 
made, we know not; what the condition of the translated 
saint is, or whether the body is like the resurrection body, 
or different, — whether at the last day a re-embodiment or 



NOTES. 247 

re-organization of those who have been translated is to take 
place, we are not informed in the Scriptures ; hence the 
difficulty, until all these matters are made known, is not 
such as need perplex one. 



Note XXXVII. (Page 203.) 

Romula, when dying, called Redempta, who, coming in 
with another, '' suddenly heard two choirs singing, the one 
the voices of men, the other of women, responding one to 
another over the bed where she was dying; and as the 
chorus died away, celestial odors seemed to fill all the 



Payson, when dying, exclaimed: "My God is in this 
room ; and O, how lovely is the sight ! how glorious does 
he appear! worthy of ten thousand hearts, if I had so 
many to give ! .... The celestial city is full in view! its 
glories beam upon me ! its breezes fan me ! its odors are 
wafied to me! its music strikes my ear! and its spirit 
breathes into my heart! The Son of Righteousness has 
been rising higher and higher, and seems to be drawing 
nearer and nearer, till he pours forth such a flood of bright- 
ness as almost overwhelms me. My soul exulting, and 
almost trembling at this excessive brightness, wonders 
with unutterable wonder, why God should thus deign to 
shine upon a sinful worm ! " 

In the last spasms of Asiatic cholera, Gordon Hall ex- 
claimed, "Glory, glory, glory!" 

The Rev. John Harrison, when dying, said to those about 
him : " O, I never saw so much as I now do! O, the as- 
tonishing, the inconceivable glory of the other world ! 
What discoveries I have had of it this day! I long, I long 
to be there ! I must have an eternity of peace ! O, the 
unspeakable, the substantial joys I feel ! This is glory 



2d5 THE INTERMEDIATE WORLD. 

beg^n ! I am filled with God ! My life is hid with Christ 
in Gpd ! Only see the infinite ' expanse ' ! " 

Dr. Xhornwell, professor in the South Carolina Presby- 
terian Theological School, repeatedly exclaimed, when 
dying, '* O, the te7n^le on the ^xq2X flain ! " 

Said Mrs. Stubbs to the friends gathered at her peaceful, 
dying bed-side : " O would to God you saw what I now see ! 
Behold I see infinite millions of most glorious angels stand 
about me with fiery chariots, ready to carry my soul to 
the kingdom ! " 



Note XXXVIII. (Page 204.) 

Rev. J. H. Morison, speaking of new disclosures which 
may come to the soul by giving it new senses, or by allow- 
ing dormant senses to wake, employs the following sug- 
gestive language : '* Suppose that a man had been created 
without the sense of hearing or of sight. He stands by 
the waterfall : the wild magnificence of the surrounding 
scene, the rainbow softness and repose blended with its 
energy, the deep and awful harmony of its tones, uttering 
themselves in the solitude of nature, are there ; but to him 
all is silence and darkness. He goes out as the gray dawn 
feebly spreads itself over the east, ray after ray shooting up 
into the darkness of night, till the whole horizon is glow- 
ing, and the sun comes forth amid a general burst of song 
from field and grove. Still to him all is darkness and 
silence, — no voice, no light, and no intimation that such 
things are. A tradition there may be, like our traditions 
from prophets, that to some of his race, in distant ages, 
strange revelations respecting these things were made ; but 
they soon faded out, — the light he supposes shone but for 
a day, and ever after a universal blank overshadowed the 
earth. But suddenly his ears are opened, and unimagined 
sensations throng upon him. Melodies that seem from 



NOTES. 249 

heaven, all harmonious sounds of winds and birds and 
flowing streams, break in upon the silence of centuries. 
Then his ejes are opened, and a new creation is before 
him : earth and sky, with all the changes that pass over 
them; the approach of morning and evening, of spring 
and summer; and not less than these, the human face, on 
which are imprinted like passing lights and shadows the 
various emotions of the soul; — all these, amid which he 
has lived from childhood, come out as a new order of 
being. Now, is it unreasonable to suppose that a new sense 
added to what we now have might reveal to us qualities 
and beings as much brighter than any we now witness, as 
the revelations of sight are brighter than the objects of 
touch? For example, we now see only effects, the plant, 
the tree, the man, and the coarse material out of which they 
are formed. But why might not a sense be given to see 
the causes which we know must exist.? And what a reve- 
lation would this be, — to see all the secret causes that are 
at work in matter, producing the marvellous revolutions 
that are now in everything taking place on the earth ! But 
suppose this faculty so enlarged as to take in the causes 
that act not only on matter, but on mind. Might it not be 
that spiritual influences would be revealed, surrounding us, 
going through our lives, coming when we least suspect it, 
like songs and sunbeams upon the blind and deaf, and 
lingering with a more exquisite beauty and melody around 
what seem to us the most lonely, dark, and disconsolate 
hours ? Might we not then see that they who had seemed 
lost are still around us, — that Jesus, that the wise and good 
of all times, who lived and died for man, did not close 
their ministry with their lives, but are still with unseen 
counsels helping forward the great purposes of God.?" 

An author already several times referred to, illustrates 
the same thought thus : '* There is a child asleep amid sum- 
mer scenery, shut in to a dream-world of his own. In that 
dream-world he sees a variety of pleasing objects, frolics 



250 THE INTERMEDIATE WORLD, 

with his companions, and plashes in the brooks; and so 
delighted is he that his cheeks are aglow and a smile is 
playing around his lips. It is all real to him, and he knows 
for the time of no other mode of existence. But all the 
while he is in a world still more bright and objective, of 
which he has not the faintest cognizance. The fragrance 
of flowers is wafted over him unperceived, and the warble 
of birds falls unheeded upon his ear. He is in two worlds 
at once, — consciously in one, unconsciously in the other. 
How will you transfer his relations from the first to the 
last.? How will you bring him from the dream-world into 
the real one.? Not by taking him on a journey through 
space, but simply by ivaking him tip. Close one set of 
senses, and open another, and the whole work is done. 
One world vanishes, and another opens upon him its end- 
less range of objects. So it is with us. We dream now; 
we shall wake anon, and wonder at the fields which lie 
about us and the skies that bend over us." 



PROF. L. T. TOWNSEND'S BOOKS. 



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